Feb 14, 2015
A whopping decade of blogging
Time flies; it appears I’ve been charting of (mis)adventures for a good decade now. I started blogging on the suggestion and encouragement of my friend D, back at a time when I was searching for a solution to share (travel) news with my family and friends while trying to limit the use of photo attachments that could easily clog up emails. Remember, once upon a time, we did not have mailboxes with 1G+ storage space nor super high speed internet! With the help of Ed and JC – they are awesome technical rockstars! – I managed to get something up and running in no time.
Of course, there aren’t ten years worth of blog posts on this site. Blog 1.0 was hosted elsewhere, written at a carefree time where I was less concerned about public sharing of personal information. With time came better awareness and the want to protect the privacy of people in my life so when I acquired this current domain name, I made a conscious decision to keep their stories away from Blog 2.0. F does get regular mention because often, it’s our story that I’m retelling.
A lot had been written about the state of blogging today, its impending death (so far still kept at bay) and whats not. Funnily, and perhaps unsurprisingly, I don’t share the sentiment. Then again, I have not been using my blog as a mean to reach out to wider audience, to build a monetise-able brand, to track optimal SEOs and the whole shebang that came with the concept of successful blogging. I just wanted an outlet to write, to do something different from my day job and to still share (travel) news and photos with my family and friends, although they do nowadays tend to get quick, real-life updates via Facebook posts or WhatsApp messages. Full stories had got to wait till I’m back in front of my laptop, and as you know, this could drag on for a while… :p
I had not known where this garden path would have led me, but like Dixit, it allows me to tap in and to nurture creativity, to test the water in storytelling – with varying degree of success – and to make use of the mediums afforded to me. More importantly, it spurs me to explore, explore, explore; not just physical exploration of all that surround me, but of digging up history behind what piqued my interest, looking at things from different angles, meeting people who enriches the way I observe a society.
Thank you for keeping me accompanied throughout this journey. Who knows what the next decade of blogging will be like (when will it really die?) and where it will take me (not offers of sponsored posts, please)? It has served as a wonderful memory box for many years, and may there be many more to come. With less time lag between updates, hopefully? ;)
You have a nice blog with excellent photos. Thinking of it I started my blog 10 years ago as well. I do go back to read what I wrote and I’m often amazed of how my feelings have changed toward certain things.
Keep up the great work!
Thanks :)
Indeed, reading back some of the things that I wrote, I wonder too at how our way of thinking evolved with time. Blog does act as a good diary in that sense.
wooohooo…time fliessss lil ;)
And it was so recently you told me to blog ;)
It’s been great to be able to share all this with you ^^
And more sharing, there shall be! :)
I have written a similar post in my blog v3.0 somewhere in this world wide web.
I’ve been “blogging” for over 15 years. my blog v3.0 is much more personal and i haven’t been updating it much recently, with my blog 4.0 as a more non-personal, shared with a friend travel blog.
I’ve always relied on blogging as a polished diary and a way to process and arrange my thoughts and had no idea you can build and brand and monetize from it recently (old-school brain here).
The non-personal stuff is so much easier to write but so much less rewarding personally.
Thank you for sharing this!
I follow a few people on Twitter who happen to feel quite strongly re monetising blog so from time to time, I see articles that reveal more about the process behind. I also previously received emails from content managers asking about sponsored contents etc, but those are not interesting to me anyway, so I just declined their offers.
I don’t know if non-personal stuff is much easier to write. It depends on what you define as personal/non-personal stuff? Non-personal stuff such as factual information on travel destination can be tricky sometimes as I’d double and triple check that I have the right information first, and fact-checking takes time. Personal stuff such as activities during my travel or my dining experience are easier to write since they pertain to my perception of things, but certain personal events require some kind of self-censorship that achieving the right tone could take a bit of work.
I’m going to check out your blog when I get a few days off this coming week! :D