“Homepage”

When did this place become a ‘blog’ instead of a ‘homepage’?

Or was it ever a ‘homepage’?

I remember back in the day (10 whole years ago!), people didn’t have ‘blogs’, they had ‘home pages’. It was different for one reason: a blog you’re expected to update, and is supposed to be for people to look in. A home page, on the other hand, didn’t need to update for months on end (but that didn’t stop you from checking back every day if it was a really good home page).

But then… but then, the online diary, the web log came along, and the mishmash ended, and everyone transitioned to the blog. The extra bits of the home page – the carefully crafted, hand built HTML of pages past all gone, replaced by the march of time-stamps and updates to show you were still alive.

The borg of blogs hastened assimilation with the combined might of the blogging software and RSS essentially redefining and replacing the need for refreshing a home page, the need to revisit sites to see if something’s changed – you don’t go to the content, the content comes to you.

Let’s be honest – any blog might be a place to visit, but it’s by no means a ‘home’ you can wander in whenever you wish. ‘House page’ also doesn’t have the same ring to it. So somewhere along the way, I think we lost the homepage, the collection of random that constituted the online existence. I lost my list of links for a blogroll, and I’ve even lost that since in an effort at simplification.

It’s something I’m working to restore. I’m going to go back to the home page, the home over the blog alone. This will necessitate moving away from having WordPress do everything for me – for me to actually crank out an angle bracket or two again. It’ll probably break the ‘permalinks’ too, but it’s got to be done. It’s no longer a home, and I didn’t set out to do that.