I have a very unique job, one in which I have the opportunity to sit and listen to some “important” bloggers (Joi Ito, Tom Crampton, Loic Le Meur) talk about the future of the tech world, blogging, and the internet. Luckily I have some good friends whom I have similar conversations with and have a different view of the future of the web. With these two perspectives I have been thinking about my blog, but can’t seem to come to a conclusion. Maybe I can get your help.
- I am not a writer. I speak much better than I write. If you think my writing is good at all, it’s because I have a few friends who do bits of editing for me.
- I’m a video producer and photographer.
- I post on flickr, and twitter often.
- I upload a video a day for Loic Le Meur, post it on his blog, facebook, YouTube and blip.tv, making me a full-time Video Blogger.
So the question is this. Is my blog layout a good layout? If I don’t see myself as being a writer should the center of my blog be a place for writing? Also, if I’m producing a video a day should I be posting those videos on my blog even if they’re not about me? They are my day’s work after all.
I’d like my blog to be more interactive with my lifestyle and my internet use. If I’m online all day long creating content why does my blog feel so static at times? I’m open to suggestions, critiques, comments, and design ideas.
By the way, I have video commenting in the comments section. If you have a webcam, join the video conversation.
5 responses so far ↓
1 drew // May 22, 2008 at 9:13 am
I think you do need a facelift, Whit.
Le sigh.
The answer to your site is probably Tumblr. This website service aggregates all your online services into one website view. Check out:
http://blog.phiffer.org and
http://secretenemyhideout.com/
We could move your blog to blog.whitscott.com and you could still write long entries there if you have a hankering to do so. The blog entries would get fed into the Tumblr site (at whitscott.com) as well.
I would assume we could pipe your Seesmic feed into Tumblr as well.
2 brookr // May 22, 2008 at 11:04 am
Tweaking, perhaps, but not so much lifting. You have one of the better designed blogs of what i read regularly.
Tumblr is the answer… It should pull in all your content from any source, and show it chronologically. Keep the blog a blog tho, so you can continue writing about friends, thoughts, ideas, plans when the mood strikes.
3 Whit Scott // May 22, 2008 at 12:12 pm
I have a tumblr blog at http://whitscott.tumblr.com/ but i’m not sure that It’s answering my question. Visually, I think something better can be made. Why do we keep scrolling down? Who invented the scroll down? Love Tumblr though…
Best so far is probably Netvibes. Pretty close to what i’m looking for, but maybe not it.
http://www.netvibes.com/whitscott
I want it here, my site I love, it’s mine, it’s not like others, but it can be taken to the next level. Glad you saw this drew.
4 cait // May 22, 2008 at 1:47 pm
well I’m not like these other genius web folk in giving advice. But as a regular reader, video watcher and photo browser… I would like to say that I enjoy every time I come on this site. I like reading about what your doing and I especially like looking at and even more especially like WATCHING what you are doing. Your videos are really what I come on here for. could there be more of a focus on your videos. Such as how you did some of the filming or why you specifically wanted to film something. why you chose the music you did and I would also like to see the seesmic videos posted here. Maybe some roughly edited shorts on silly things that happen at work? Non the less I love the site and I love your work so keep at it!
5 Thomas Crampton // May 22, 2008 at 6:35 pm
Whit,
Honored to be considered an “important” blogger.
I’ve been doing a redesign on my own blog and giving the role of the blogs a lot of thinking lately.
For your case, here’s my thoughts:
Yes, you should include your latest work on the blog, even if it is not about you. This allows people to see what you have been up to.
This does not mean that your blog gets dominated by the videos you do, but they become an integral part.
Your blog is thus “alive” each time you produce a new video, but not dominated by your work.
How to accomplish this?
While I like the Friend Feed concept, it doesn’t quite do it for me. Things get lost and confused in the single list approach.
I could see you combining work and personal in a front page format along the lines of the revolution themes for wordpress: http://www.revolutiontheme.com/.
Using one of these themes, or something similar, your videos for work could be in one feed and your personal blog items in another feed that is parallel on the same front page. This is not unlike what you did on Netvibes, but more blog-like.
I also encourage you to look at Joi Ito’s latest posting about his blog. There is something interesting in flipping the social networking concept inside out.
http://joi.ito.com/weblog/2008/05/20/my-new-look-and.html
Good luck with the redesign and I look forward to seeing what you do!
You do great video editing, by the way.
Tom
Leave a Comment