Saturday, May 14, 2011

Do I upgrade?

My little blog is almost 8 years old, roughly the same age I was in my third pair of glasses. So the question of the hour is this: do I make the move to a full-fledged website with tabs and pages and anything else my little fingers can find? Or do I stick with what I do well: blogging infrequently. (Question: where should a "?" have gone? Before the colon or after the period? I never know).

After that elementary level English slip-up, I'll throw in some Latin just to keep this blog on the intellectual high ground. And so, a Pro / Con list.

Pro (for)
  1.  Change is good
Con (against, or "with" if you took Spanish instead of Latin)
  1. Change for the sake of change is stupid
And I'm at an impasse. So I call on you, dear readers, to help me. (I'm serious here).

What would a good domain name be? All I've come up with is "karintome.com" (10 points for creativity!) A good name should describe the content or be catchy or something. If it's going to be your name, I feel like you need to be Ashton Kutcher. But I could be wrong.

Right now my blog is all over the map, content wise. I think if I moved from a blog, I need to be single focused. What would you want me to focus on?

Help me!

8 comments:

Anna said...

Are you saying that if you change it, you will blog more frequently? Because if not, then don't change. But I think all your faithful readers would like to see you blog more frequently, and to not limit yourself to one topic. As for a name, how about a play on words with your last name? All of a sudden "Tome Raider" just popped into my had, but that's not what I mean at all. I mean since your last name can mean a large, scholarly book, seems like you could get some mileage from that.

Unknown said...

Ah, Tome Raider. Welcome to my college nickname. (I think it helps that i'm the spitting image of Angelina Jolie)

Un Till said...

How about "Tome To You"?

Anonymous said...

you should move over to wordpress. http://davidfridenhour.com is what I was able to do for my meager blog.

Unknown said...

I'm pretty sure the question mark goes at the very end (after infrequently) but I could be wrong. :)

Okay, now the real questions about your blog... if you think a move will motivate you to write more, then I say go for it! I first started blogging on LiveJournal (!) 8 years ago, but eventually, I ran out of steam. Moving to blogger helped me refocus and make it less of a whiny personal diary and something (I hope!) more substantial. Sometimes a change of scenery helps.

If you don't want to move the whole thing, you might want to try switching to Blogger's newer template designer to freshen up the design. It helps you really customize and allows tabs and pages. My sister is a Photoshop ninja and can make you a cool header graphic. (she made mine. :))

If you really want to move it, I've heard Wordpress is better. Been playing with it and contemplating switching myself actually. I like their built-in comment system much better... threaded comments and email notifications so you can have actual conversations. I want to switch just so I can have that.

As for content focus, I tried that and it made me crazy. I know, I know... that's what the pros say you *have* to do, but it just makes me feel blocked. Your writing evolves into a natural theme, so don't feel like you have to put yourself in a box!

I hope that helps, even if it is kind of a "I dunno do whatever you want" reply. Whatever you do, I hope it inspires you to write more! :)

Russ said...

I read through RSS, so the format doesn't matter much to me.

However, I do wish you wrote more. Find something your passionate about and just write.

Coupons, fashion, technology, relationships, something... and just starting writing. I think you'll find what comes.

When I started a blog, I wrote a long-list of things I was interested in and would be willing to risk "processing out loud" with some others.

I think if you made such a list, you'd see some themes begin to emerge.

Whatever format you choose, I hope you keep writing.

Anonymous said...

Karin.

1. the question mark goes after "infrequently" IMHO.

2. i think you need to come up with a domain name after you decide what you want to do w/ the website/blog. I don't think moving to a full-fledged website means giving up blogging. You could easily have your blog on the front page, and then your tabs/pages could be other major things you're interested in. like space flight. or carmen sandiego.

as most everyone else has said, wordpress is really the way to go if you plan to keep blogging. which i think you should do. keep blogging, that is. and do it more frequently. because you make me laugh.

and i can help you. i make websites.

my two cents.

Anonymous said...

beige.com or
beige is my favorite color

go with reverse psychology to draw in new readers

your writing is definitely the opposite of beige