Flatlined

Ever since my blog has changed addresses, for personal reasons, I have had the fun and enjoying time of watching my number of views just flatline. I am not saying that this is something I truly wanted to watch happen with my blog, but I am interested in the whole experience. What happened to all of the google searches that brought random people here? What happened to my artwork being viewed? Nothing, it just disappeared...

A New, Darker Tumble

I have always thought of myself as two different halves. There is the one side that sees the world for what it is and then a side that likes to look a bit more abstractly on what I think. In other words, in one world I can see my friends, family, and everyone else as they are, but in another world I like to think backwards and turn things around. Maybe up is down and down becomes up, the limits of society suddenly unconstructed and the limitless suddenly pushed back.

So, to bring about a new sense of disorder, I decided to just start a whole new blog to get these thoughts out in the open. This new blog is going to be one-hundred percent darker than this one, and definitely more abstract. I will probably even offend some people along the way, which is why I am not really going to associate this blog with my name. Actually, besides this post here I do not think I am going to mention it anywhere else. And that is what this blog is supposed to be, anonymous and abstract. If you would like to take a look at the blog's design, this will be the only place I post the link.

[http://perplexpolar.tumblr.com]

I decided to use Tumblr as the hosting website because I wanted a few options that are only available on Tumblr. First of all, this is going to be a rather rambling blog where I actually plan on just going on about something I have randomly concluded. Since it is a ramble, I want it to also be able to have infinite scrolling. I like the idea that if someone gets really into reading my stuff they can just scroll down forever. I will also not be posting anything that will stop people from using it as such, meaning there are no links except the one. Second, I want this blog to be filled with posts that come out on a random schedule and not because I made them. I will write my thoughts down, but the postings will be at random times that may not associate with exactly when I wrote them. Tumblr has a wonderful way of doing that, which should make it interesting. And finally, I wanted to post somewhere with fluctuating amounts of persons that can then repost what they find. In other words, I want to spread the wealth, so to speak, that I write and then see if it grows.

This is both an experiment as much as it is a test. We'll have to see if I can keep posting on there up-to-date and daily like I do with this blog. And if I do manage to get an audience, then this might get even more interesting.

When Does It End?

Today I decided to take a dive on the stranger side and I clicked that button at the top of my blog that says simply, "Next Blog»". Maybe curiosity had gotten the better of me, but I just wanted to see what other types of bloggers were out there and what they were writing about. So what did I learn? Pretty much nothing that I did not already know. Most blogs out there are run by women who just want a minute to be heard, a look into their style, and a place to call their own. I am not saying that is a bad thing at all, everyone deserves a little bit of space out there to post what they are thinking.

What was more interesting is how people seem to have vanished from the blogging scene. What was once a very vibrant community seems to have died down to a few blogs per month or even a stop completely to all blogging capabilities. Which got me to thinking, how long do blogs tend to stay alive? For some, it was a small glimpse into a dark, corner section of their lives. For others, it was just something on the side and they lost track. And maybe I was asking this question for the greater interest, when will my blog die off.

I guess it is going to take something as powerful as pinterest, a social media website that basically killed off all the arts and crafts blogs, or tumbler, a quick-post thought and image social media website, to actually move me onto something new. But I do not think that will happen though, because for all the good that are those websites they lack one important part of me. I like to write. I like to express myself with the english language, spraying my words onto paper and letting my thoughts ramble on. So I do not see myself switching any time soon, but I also can see why a lot of these older blogs are sort of just dying off.

Just a thought.

Still Updating

I have recently had a lot of energy to turn my blog from a simple cut-and-paste format that they provide into a more personal thing. I've been working countlessly on the backend of things, messing with the HTML as best I can, as I actually write the script myself to create a more efficient and nicer blog. To everyone that views the page, that means almost nothing. But to a programmer it means faster load times, easier code to browse through, and just overall better coding.

More Pictures!

So I started working on a whole new page of the blog, one that is specifically for all the pictures I've been taking this year. I have a feeling that I'm going to have too many next year and will have to make a brand new page, but until I run into that problem I'm going to use this page. So sorry if it takes a while to load, but it has just under seven months worth of photographs.

I'm probably going to go and do the same thing with artwork that I've worked on in the past year as well as youtube videos. I really like the idea of everything being in one place for the year, making it easy to find and view. If you have any comments to offer, then please tell me because I will take them into consideration.

Anyway, to reach the new page you can either click the tab at the top of the blog (which will remain there) or follow the following link:

[http://canvasspots.blogspot.com/p/spectacular-snapshots.html]

Tumblr vs Blogger (Blogspot)

If you did not know, I decided to run my blog on both Tumblr and Blogger (also called blogspot). If you feel the need to follow me on Tumbler, then simple go to http://canvasspots.tumblr.com and start following me. I've tried to set it up as best I can the same, but very quickly I am starting to see there are several differences between the two. Some for the better and some for the worse.

My Personal Blogging History
Now, I've always been a Blogger fan when it comes to writing blogs. When you search blog in Google, Blogger is the first to come up (which may have something to do with the fact that Google owns Blogger). When I first got into blogging back in the day, that is what I did and that is how I first ended up on here. And to be honest, it has all the tools a beginner really needs to start off.

But as I have mentioned in my very first blog, this new account is to symbolize a starting-over of my entire blogging history. As such, I feel that it is time to branch out and reach for other mediums to quickly blog on. That is why I have a Twitter account and that is why I want to do a Tumbler as well.

So I opened it up for the first time today and worked on getting my theme set-up over there as well. It took a while, but the Tumblr team has made editing the theme very easily. I'm not joking, editing the theme on Tumblr is brilliantly done so that anyone can enjoy quickly changing colors and then getting started or getting into the real kinks of the machine and working out problems. Being as I have some experience in website programming, that is exactly what I did. I dipped into the code and started tinkering until I got the results I wanted. Just for reference, the results I wanted were not that much different from the page I already had. I basically added a Twitter feed and moved on.

The Differences
When it comes down to it, I actually think the Tumblr system is much nicer for newcomers to the blogging world. They've basically turned blogging into a feed so that people can quickly get to creating and spend less time messing around. And I like that. Want a photograph added, there's a quick link at the top to upload and move on. Want to show off your new Youtube video? There's a button for that one too. So for the simplicity side of things, Tumblr has that down.

In fact, the only thing that can be complex, should you want it to be, is your personal theme. You can hire someone to write the code for you, buy a theme from their stock pile, or just do it yourself. That is honestly it. I think they have chosen to do this so that the website stays what they meant for it to originally be, a quick-blogging website.

Meanwhile, Blogger is a little bit more cumbersome to the newer people that use it. If you want to add a photograph, you have to make a new post. And adding a new photograph looks kind of weird, so you probably won't do that alone and will need to write something. Want to put your video in, well that requires a new post too. Like I have said before (though I believe on Tumblr), for the new-age of A.D.D. driven bloggers that is just too much work.

But having to go into each post and really start editing things has lead to another outcropping for Blogger, they have editing tools! Unlike Tumblr where everything is congruent and you must conform to their way of posting pictures, text, and videos, Blogger allows the users to make each and every post different with all of the editing options. And not only that, but they make a large majority of them user-friendly from the get go. Want to go farther than those user-friendly button you see in each blog? No problem, just click the HTML button and get to writing the code yourself.

My Personal Preference
Hands down I prefer Blogger for making my posts. I can make them easily, lengthy, and actually the way I want them to appear for my viewers. However, as far as networking and socializing goes, I really love the way Tumblr is set up. So in the end there is no winning (yet) and I'm just going to have to do both. And since I can't copy and paste code from Blogger to Tumblr (or vise-versa), I'm going to be forced to use them for their advantages. In other words, stay tuned to both!