Wednesday, June 16, 2004
BLOG NATION APOCALYPSE: It looks like one of the earliest providers of free blog space has suddenly pulled the plug, leaving 3,000 people high and dry. While I have to wonder why the guy (yeah, it was a single guy, not a company) didn't give any advance warning whatsoever, I can understand that, when you're doing something for other people on your own dime, you have to do what you have to do. Oh yeah, and it's yet another reminder that nothing you do online is guaranteed to be there tomorrow, so if you want to keep something, back it up. Often.
A small number of the shriller blog people have compared the closing of the service to the World Trade Center tragedy ("this is bloggerdom's 9/11"), and those words fall dead as soon as they reach my eyes, as does my respect for anybody who says something like that. I'm not linking to those comments here, and that's the only justification you're getting. Call it the burning of the original Library of Alexandria, if you need to pile on the hyperbole, but not an international tragedy that fresh. I know they're in an advanced state of hysteria, but all they lost were some words. If it came to a choice between wiping Tiny Money Land and thousands of lives on the line, it's an easy choice to make. Blogs aren't a life-or-death thing, and if this one vanished suddenly, it'd just be another thing to deal with in a day.
Of course, if I posted to mine a dozen times a day like some people do, my tone would be different, I'm sure.
A small number of the shriller blog people have compared the closing of the service to the World Trade Center tragedy ("this is bloggerdom's 9/11"), and those words fall dead as soon as they reach my eyes, as does my respect for anybody who says something like that. I'm not linking to those comments here, and that's the only justification you're getting. Call it the burning of the original Library of Alexandria, if you need to pile on the hyperbole, but not an international tragedy that fresh. I know they're in an advanced state of hysteria, but all they lost were some words. If it came to a choice between wiping Tiny Money Land and thousands of lives on the line, it's an easy choice to make. Blogs aren't a life-or-death thing, and if this one vanished suddenly, it'd just be another thing to deal with in a day.
Of course, if I posted to mine a dozen times a day like some people do, my tone would be different, I'm sure.
|| Eric 1:01 PM#
