On blogging

I’ve decided to “refresh” my blog format in terms of both content and platform. My penchant for posting eccentric links has been satiated by the introduction of Bureaucracy, The Bygone Bureau’s new microblog.

Also, I’ve switched back to Blogger, which I haven’t used since early high school.

I have a long-term relationship with Wordpress (from way back when it was called b2/cafelog), mainly because the Bureau runs on it. In the past, I even had a fling with Movable Type before it became a sell-out. Blogger, though, is like first love—not perfect, but the one you never really get over.

Shortly after we parted, Blogger saddled up with Google. My account was still active, so I got an exclusive invite to the Gmail beta test, which, at the time, was a big deal. (Hotmail was the leading email provider, offering a pathetic two megabytes to Gmail’s gigabyte.) Invites were so precious that beta testers could even sell the three they received through an online bartering system (the name of which I now forget).

For my invites, I got a $50 gift certificate to Amazon and three CDs (The Streets’ A Grand Don’t Come for Free, the Walkmen’s Bows + Arrows, and a Von Bondies album I threw away).

But I owe a lot to Blogger. Though I never really wrote anything of worth in those days (most of it fortunately lost), having a well-designed outlet proved to be invaluable practice and an introduction to how the internet would revolutionize communication. I’ve been complimented on how efficiently I can write, but it’s not really a talent. I’ve just been writing consistently for years.

And of course, I got a head start on Gmail, the first truly powerful web-based email service. The one lesson that keeps getting reinforced in my life is that time management and quick, clear communication are the most important skills you can have.

On a similar note, Bows + Arrows is one of the few albums from high school that I still listen to.