Since I lost all my archives and had to start over from scratch, I kept thinking a lot about what’s best – create several blogs, one for each of my major interests, or post everything in one blog. Each has its benefits and pitfalls.
Having content in several blogs helps audience targeting and search engine optimization. It’s easier for visitors to understand what the blog is all about. Navigation is simpler, and niche-specific customizations are easier to do. For example, just before I lost my WordPress archives I experimented with taxonomies for movies data – genres, directors, actors, etc.
On the other hand, keeping track of several blogs is way much more work. Cross-topic posts don’t work to well. And there is always this chance of a hobby change or priority shift. If I have an interest in pink flying elephants and a separate blog devoted to just them, and then my interest dies out a couple of years later, I end up with a blog which has a bunch of interesting stuff “from before”, but never gets updated anymore. And then it dies out and disappears.
And with all that data gone recently, I hate to hear anything about “disappears”. Plus I miss huge archives spanning a few years and “this day in previous years” on the sidebar of my site. So, I decided to keep everything in one place. I’ll try my best to keep it well organized with categories and tags. Especially now that I know better how to use them together (not as in say pre-2000, when tags weren’t widely used yet and sub-categories were poorly supported).
So, movie reviews will be posted to this blog under the category “Movies”. Also, movie rating system will be simplified. In stead of following IMDB‘s notation of “from 1 to 10, with fractions“, I’ll use “an integer from 1 to 5“. It should be something along the lines of:
- Avoid at all costs. Negative experience, possibly with consequences.
- Time-waster. Watch it only if you ran out of choices, or studying bad examples for your new project.
- Average. Nothing special, unoriginal, boring.
- Pretty good. Worth going to the movies for or maybe even buying a DVD.
- Excellent. Perfect. Masterpiece. Must see. Highly recommended.
I’ll also use tags to highlight people, who participated in the making of the movie.
Another upcoming change is for Technology. I work with some tools more than I do with others. Those, which I think are important to me, will get a sub-category under Technology. One of these tools will be WordPress. I used to have a side project WordPress Bits some time ago. It’s been a long while since I abandoned it. But my interest is always somewhere nearby. And I see there is lots of interest around that project, since it still gets comments, questions, and pointers to updated information. I’ll resurrect it and move it over here.
These are the upcoming changes, as I see them now.
yup, I also prefer one…