Then I apparently got really old and out of touch with reality. Now it's 2014 and blogs are officially dead. Apparently the world has migrated to facebook, leaving me in the dust.
I log on to facebook about once a year (for some unknown reason). After wading through hundreds of friend requests (I'm so popular), like one I got today from my wife's cousin's dog's groomer's boyfriend's grandpa (Ok then; maybe I'm not so popular), I arrive at something that looks like vomit (is this called my home screen?). It's a hodge podge of random collections of crap from people that I said hi to once while in college. When I scroll down to someone that I actually know, it's a link to a video about a cat and a squirrel playing with one another. (Under normal circumstances I wouldn't appreciate the cuteness of this video, but I do given that I watched our neighbor's cat kill a squirrel as I watched general conference last October and hide it in our neighbors bush right next to her front door. I wonder if my neighbor's house smelled bad as it decomposed. Wow. Life is so fragile. One moment you're a bushy tailed squirrel enjoying a nice fall afternoon and the next minute you're hanging lifeless from Guss-Guss' mouth.) Oh, and there are super unflattering pictures of me that someone has "tagged" me in. If I cared, I'd spend 5 seconds googling the solution to find an answer on how to remove them, but I don't want to. It's better that way.
So why am I rambling?
I challenge both readers of this blog (my mom and Tiff's mom) to start a blogging revitalization revolution! Let's bring back blogging like it's 2007!
I know what you're thinking. Blogging is so onerous (you have to go to blogger, click on a new post, write things, then click the publish button). Facebooking is so easy. All you need to do to facebook is post a link to a picture of a cat and a squirrel playing. To blog, you have to sit down and type because deep down you understood that cats and squirrels don't necessarily belong on blogs.
I've been thinking, and I've come up with a proposal for the world:
From henceforth I decree the following to be appropriate uses of technology:
Facebook: Videos of cats wrestling squirrels and pictures of what you ate for dinner tonight
Blogs: Pictures of your family and updates of your family and thoughts you have on life that consist of more than a few words
The benefits to me of this approach:
- I get to see what's happening in the lives of people I care about.
- I don't need to get sucked into the world of time-wasting (but entertaining) cat wrestling squirrel videos to get to the meat.
- The quality of the content that I read will probably improve.
I think many people will benefit similarly.
Who is on board with this approach? (Crickets chirping).
I know what you're thinking. Google reader died. It's a sign of the times Brian, just get over it. Blogs are so 2007...
But we mustn't give up. It's in the hour of our greatest adversity where the opportunity for greatness arises. Let us press onward!
So how do we do it?
Digg Reader is what I use to read blogs. I'm happy with it. The only problem is that it doesn't have any search functionality. I read an article a month or two back that I tried to find again, and it was hopeless.
Feedly is what most people use. I dropped it initially but may go back to it due to its search capabilities.
What about creepos who you don't want looking at pictures of your children?
- Put pictures on a private blog.
But RSS (i.e. the whole ) doesn't work with private blogs?!?!
- Create a mirror blog that's public and link to private blog posts from it. Then the RSS magic does it's thing. You control who has access to your private blog.
So there we go. One man's journey to avoid squirrel videos and become informed of people I like.
(Don't forget to "share" and "like" this on Facebook, "+1" this on Google+ (I can't write the words Google+ without laughing out loud), and "tweet" it on Twitter #brian'sbloggingrevitalizationrevolution !!!!! Alternatively, you can link to it on your blog that you haven't touched since your 10 year old was born!!! )
