I'm back. And I'm here to stay.
As many of you are aware, I've been pretty addicted to facebook in the last year and the addiction has got so bad that I have pretty much given up all other forms of web leisure that always gave me so much pleasure, in exchange for the easy audience figures that were achievable through the social network.
Let's be fair and give facebook it's due. It's a pretty potent package, providing you with a convenient place to upload photos, chat to each other, publicly mouth off and update your present status, all with a ready made audience of your friends. For us bloggers, who have a core readership of about 10 and put hours and hours of effort into writing and posting quality pics and posts, this seemed almost too good to be true.
But after 265 albums, 2269 tagged photos, countless messages and wall posts and innumerable crap invites, I've decided that actually it is.
As from Monday I will be deactivating my facebook account and returning to blogging with a vengeance.
Here's why and here's how.
Despite all the good things about facebook, over the past year I have felt that the quality of everything I have presented to the world has gradually deteriorated. My blogs here have been consistently wittier, and more gratifying to write than they could ever hope to be on facebook, and ultimately my readership here appreciate what I write.
I love photography as well, and on flickr I post up all the photos I think are worth looking at. On facebook I put all the rest. As a result, facebook has recently been host to 1000s of photos that are utterly inane and taken by me and I'm not particularly proud of that.
In short, the two elements of the web I most love, sharing my crazy thoughts and improving my photography have suffered immensely since the rise of facebook. Initally this was a gradual erosion of my writing to just 160 characters for a status, to the steady oblivion we have witnessed in the past few months. My photos went from a pretty strict rule of not taking photos in the pub to a steady diet of photos down the pub.
I would swap one photo on flickr for 100 on facebook any day. They just don't compare.
In addition to this, facebook is just getting dull. After reading peoples statuses, I find there's not much more I care about. I don't read other peoples notes, or even look at their crap pictures down the pub. And people don't even update statuses that much any more these days.
But back here in blogland, I read blogs that I enjoy and you read mine because you presumably like what I write and how I write it.
You don't visit my blog because you know me and are holding on to me for some unknown sentimental reason. You read my blog because you want to.
My posts here aren't written in such a way that they are cryptic and beg you to ask me further questions. I write because I want to tell you a story.
Back here in blogland I follow the greatest writers I can find. Step up Foss, Tora, Dade and all the others. You know who you are! I haven't ever met Foss but he makes me leak urine.
Back here in blogland I can rant and rave all I like and tell stories in depth, take pictures that don't have to have tagged people in them and can build things up without predjudice. This is a place where, ironically I can develop freely as a writer and storyteller. Because it's a place out in the open where I can shout and know that the only people who are listening are the only ones who care! Unlike facebook, I don't have to watch what I say, because it doesn't get delivered to everyone I know. It gets delivered to people I don't know and don't care that much about because I didn't go to school with everyone who reads my blog. If you read this, I can be pretty sure you won't gossip about me down the pub to anyone I know from my past.
Enough explaining, you bloggers out there know what I'm talkin about and those of you reading this who don't know will likely never understand no matter how many column inches I use trying to explain the joys of blogging over facebook.
Now down to the replacement technology to fill the gap.
One of my greatest hangups of the modern age is the fact that we no longer write REAL letters, and we don't really make real contact because we're electronically networked. This distance is kinda sad, but you see that there is still a massive yearning for it. I get kinda crazy when I receive postcards personally.
I have this wall in my room. It's totally blank. So putting two and two together I've decided that my replacement for my wall on facebook will be the REAL wall in my room. And the replacement for posts, will be REAL posts. REAL posts from REAL people.
So as of Monday, the site www.myrealwall.com is launched, a real beta project at the moment. It will be totally NOT in real time, photos will be taken perhaps once or twice a day of my ACTUAL wall in my room. The posts will be REAL posts from YOU. yes YOU.
So in future, if you want to post on my wall, send your post to my address, which I will have initially sent to everyone on my facebook announcement and I will post it up with blu-tac on my REAL wall and take a picture of it which I will stick on the site.
Obviously as new post comes in, just like on facebook, your post will be moved into the archives, and hopefully there will be enough posts to make this quite interesting.
So what about the other features? Well status updates will most likely be handled by twitter and my profile pic will be very interesting to work out. Photo gallery will be back to high quality stuff on flickr as well as a REAL photo gallery. Feel free to send in photos, but make sure they are big enough to be seen properly on my wall.
Any questions?
Then lets begin...
