WTF?

I used to write every single day in some form or another. Often times it would be blog posts, and often times several of them. But

and I haven’t been doing it so much recently, but I miss it and have been trying to think of how to motivate myself to write and publish things on a regular basis. This got me thinking about *where* exactly to do that.

In the olden days my blog was the obvious answer to that. That’s where I want everything. As I started using twitter more often I set up scripts to tweet out when I made new posts, kind of in efforts to tie those two conversations together. And often I’d have discussions on twitter about posts I’d written on my own blog just as much, if not more than in the comments of those posts themselves. Which is weird, but whatever – where isn’t as important as what I think. I started using tumblr a lot in the last year or so but I’ve been using it almost exclusively as a place to dump (or recycle) random crap I find around the web. Images and links mostly. I’ve put very little original content there, though I know that my usage isn’t indicative for how others use it. And I know a lot of people put exclusively original stuff on tumblr resulting in a long cycle of reblogs and discussion. Which isn’t too different than talking about a post on twitter. Which isn’t too different that talking about a post in the comments of that post.

Sure you can argue that comments on the post itself are the most ideal situation because then the whole conversation is in one place and can be referenced in the future. But as a long time web publisher I’ve seen another side to that – some people don’t want their comments to be part of an archive. Some people want to keep their comments in their own world (their twitter account for example) and/or have the ability to delete their comments later should they change their minds or find something they said embarrassing. Or whatever. Which is annoying sometimes, but really doesn’t matter – discussions are active and alive, so wherever that happens, however that happens right now is much more important than ensuring that can be referenced months or years down the line. Things like twitter, and maybe even tumblr for that matter are seen as a bit more temporal and I feel like in 2011 people are quicker to voice their opinion in their own space than in the comments on someone else’s space.

Which brings me back to blogging. Part of the thrill of this is the feedback, and if the feedback is going to happen elsewhere, should the spark be elsewhere too? Does posting on ones own blog make as much sense as posting on owns own tumblr account? Should the two be one in the same. I’m wresting a bit with the organization of thoughts, and would appreciate feedback from anyone else who has thought about these things or faced these same choices.

Update 24 hours later: Amusing footnote, I received several replies about this post on twitter, several on tumber, but not a single comment here. All the replies said to post on this blog and just point to it from other services.