The Blogging Cemetery
This post was initially going to be published on my blog which I publish on Blogger. However, I think you guys would love to read it; parts referring to Blogger are in italics.
It's easy to think about death, if only by accident. It's something that unnerves me for no reason in particular, living is something I should be concentrating on with no interruption. Yet one thing which comes to my mind is what will happen to this blog should I die.
The first aspect is rather simple - the blog may no longer exist by that point. Blogger has been around for 25 years now, and is quite rare in that it's endured the various ups and downs of the internet since its launch. Partially that's because Google owns it, though Google loves to get rid of services (Google+ anyone?) and I fear Blogger could come soon. Hopefully not, though.
I do have a backup which I downloaded from Blogger, which at least means I can worry less about that aspect. A version of the blog is on the Wayback Machine, though I wonder whether it means you can access the individual posts or not. So there are aspects of the blog which will remain on the internet.
Perhaps the blog will be neglected in the end, though, which is the main argument of the blogpost. It's a dreaded sunny day, so I'll go out to the cemetery gates, which are filled with many blogs that simply aren't updated anymore. Some said farewell, others abruptly stopped, waiting to be filled with new content. Luckily for me, websites like Bearblog mean there are countless blogposts to read - perhaps they're the "new wave of blogging", no longer tied to commercial interests and merely loving to write.
It's a shame when you come across a blog and see there's nothing new there, but it's far better than coming across a domain with a name you wish you had, only to see it's now an online casino or is being offered for rent. Some of my favourite blogs date back to the "first wave of blogging", and thus their old blogposts discussing their blogrolls are full of these blogs, now lost to the world...unless they're on the Wayback Machine.
It's a curious world - chess.com started out as a website selling chess hardware, but is now the main online platform for playing chess. The same applies to the blogs which are inexplicably online casinos - they've somehow lived on in a more dislikeable manner. I reckon it was out of the writer's control, however - I know that if a bookmaker wanted my URL, I'd tell them to go away. I don't want to make my stay at the cemetery permanent.
A possible question would be "is it feasible to assume you'll be writing on All Over 2a in 60 years?", and I think the answer is likely no. Not because I hate blogging, but more because I can see my interests shifting and Blogger stopping entirely.
[All Over 2a is my main blog. Feel free to email me about the ethics of having two blogs.]
But I shouldn't be so certain - if someone asked Mick Jagger if he could see the Rolling Stones releasing new material and touring sixty years later after the release of "Satisfaction", I'm sure his reply wouldn't have been so certain either.
Some bands continue without their original members - Tangerine Dream are somehow still releasing new albums, and sorry for the constant musical references - but blogs cannot unless operated by a company. This blog will never reach that fate, I can assure you, it will remain someone tapping away at a keyboard. Whether I'm writing about what I write now far in the future is to be seen.
But obviously everything, even the universe, must come to an end, and the same applies for this blog. Without the universe there is nothing, and thus in many billions of years, this blog will officially no longer exist. I'll try and make it to its funeral.