Web Publishing
(This post was inspired by the fact that I was directing someone to pictures from Antarctica, a website I hadn’t visited in at least a year and a half.)
3 years ago, when I traveled to Antarctica, I was asked to keep a photo journal and write entries for a website every few days or so. So, I drew the outline of what I wanted my website to look like, and how I wanted things posted, and the BSA’s webmaster dealt with the rest. All I had to do was post photos and text to an FTP site and he did the rest. Looking back, what strikes me now is that during that entire process (4 months of planning and 4 months of travel) not once was the word “blog” mentioned.
Contrast that to today: you can’t go an entire day (at least, in the community that I am part of) without hearing the word several times, reading posts from several other blogs, or posting to one yourself. It’s incredible that everything that I asked an ‘expert’ to take care of just a couple years ago, anyone can do now. What’s even better is that current tools allow for the process to not only be easier, but also better! Whether you use wordpress, blogger, or some other tool, it has become exceedingly simple to publish as much or as little as you want with minimal effort.
If you’re still reading right now (and I’m going to guess that maybe 2 people are/will), you’re thinking…”yeah, no kidding…web publishing tools are growing exponentially, now you can post from literally anywhere with mobile applications” which leads me to the really cool part of this…what are the possibilities in another 3 years? will people continue to push to more easily share more and more of their lives? I’m going to guess the trend will be towards compartmentalizing what is shared, and directing information such that it is more easily shared with certain target groups of people. (Of course, if there’s a way to monetize publishing on a personal level, that would be huge too.)