Websites

You know, the operator of a website has a great deal of information about the people that visit his site. How long they hang around, how they get there, what operating system they use, what city they are visiting from – what they are looking for when they land on his site. It’s nifty really – and sometimes disheartening. This little blog of mine only gets about 20 visitors a day, not too bad – certainly not enough to feed myself on (thank goodness that was never its intention)....

Publishing a personal blog, however neglected, poses some interesting dilemmas. Whatever you publish is open to everyone on the Internet: this includes those people that know you – potentially those people that like you. You’re writing for people you may interact with, may care about, people you may sometimes have to explain yourself to. This is problematic, because you are aware of this. This awareness becomes particularly nagging when you’d like to explore wild topics, attack certain ideas, grapple with less accepted points of view....

Maybe you know the feeling, you’re salivating over an under-priced item on eBay. Your seconds away from owning the item. You’ve been the high bidder since the auction started. Just as the auctions ends, you refresh the listing page to bask in the joy of your new-found ownership – and you’ve been OUTBID. SNIPED. If you’d have known it would sell for paltry $1.25 more then your max bid, you’d have bumped ‘er up a little....