I just re-registered the mattschuette.com domain after a few weeks of it being expired and nearly past the grace period. It got me thinking about what a personal website is for these days. We have several social websites for day-to-day thoughts, text messaging or maybe an IM for more immediate needs, flickr or other sites for pictures (though probably just on a social network), and LinkedIn for resumes. What is left?
Why do people have personal websites now? If you have code to share, put it on github or wherever. I guess there’s the about page, but static content is boring. I enjoyed maintaining my own webserver, but what’s the point? For that matter, why have a blog? Most of my posts, not that there are many, lately are just rants or screeds, and that gets old after maybe two.
So I’m honestly asking any friends still stopping by here or random passers-by — what are the reasons? What is interesting to read about? What content rises above just ego stroking?
Was just checking to be sure the redirect for your domain was still working!
I like running my own server for reasons just like I do for you. I guess I just like to help. Running a server keeps me up to speed on the newest Linux distros and keeps me in practice with configuring and using it, should that ever come in handy for work.
I would agree that the concept of personal websites is pretty outdated. I don’t really store anything on my web server anymore. I use Picasa for my pictures, and don’t really have a store of mp3s since I use Spotify. I will be hosting the site for my wedding on my web server, but that isn’t really necessary.
For me, it is more about online identity. I like being THE bleemus online, somehow I think owning the domain reinforces that fact. Other people may have my handle on twitter and other sites, but I like knowing I have the domain.