October 19th, 2015

Blogroll update?

What do we even call the blogroll in 2015? I have a feeling the term has changed and no one told me. But whatever, I updated that list of links on the right of this page. I hadn’t done it in ages but I’m pretty sure no one case, since many of the links were broken and no one ever complained about it. I have fixed the broken links, deleted the blogs not updated in over a year, and added a few ones that I’ve been enjoying for ages but never mentioned.

As I say, no one clicks and these links and I doubt anyone will now. The reason the terminology is changing is that the internet is changing, and few people actually get content by surfing around a site and seeing what else they have. People use social media platforms to post links to individual posts or stories, which people click on if the topic is of interest, no matter who wrote it or where it was posted. I would never, ever actually go to the mainpage of a site like Clickhole or Upworthy, but I sure have read a lot of listicles from both.

I actually just spent a painful few minutes trying to log into my Google Analytics account and that has changed too–not only did I have to get my cell phone involved to log in, once I did I no longer really understood the dashboard. I got as far as “content drilldown,” which sounds like a cheerleading routine, realized I don’t really care if anyone clicks on my by-any-other-name blogroll and gave up.

But this post isn’t all “I will live in the past forever”–I do intend to do something new. I am going to try linking some of my posts (the good ones?) on Twitter and Facebook, just to see if anyone is interested. I feel really awkward about “push messages”–marketing speak for asking people to read my blog. But if that is the way people read now, I think I could try it without being seen as a blog-whore. People just ignore what doesn’t interest them, so they can ignore Rose-coloured along with all the Clickhole stuff as well… We’ll see how it goes.