Years back I asked myself the question of why I even try to maintain a weblog and host my own content. Obviously the topics I choose are random and span across the different interests I have (whether it be today's obsession with photography or tomorrow's problems with getting widget XYZ to operate the way I want), but when I do take the time to sit down and write something, I'm hoping that it will provide a tidbit of information or guidance to others. (That's the ego side of this venture.) Why do I put the effort, though, in controlling the bandwidth and machinery that hosts my site(s)? Why not use Blogger for my weblog, Flickr for all my photos, YouTube for videos, etc? Because they are all out of my control. I have no idea whether or not any of these services will be around in ten years. I've been blogging for over ten years. The internet archive only goes back to a site I had running in 2001, but this is quite a bit after I actually set up the first website and I'm not sure why the earlier ones don't show up. Every post I've made to my blog that has something to do with a picture or video requires that that specific picture or video (or whatever else) remains available to visitors. More importantly, because I use this weblog as a method of keeping a sort of exhibitionist diary, I want access to that content forever. If I were to take the time and go back through the archives, I'm sure I'd find many a place where I had posted something, linking to another site, and now that site is gone. That breaks the usefulness of this blog, in my opinion. What good is keeping the here and now intact and yet destroying the history? To me, that's a waste of the effort I've put into this all these years.
Today, I stumbled across a blog I hadn't visited for quite some time; jayallen.org, or more accurately, jay.vox.com. Jay linked to a hilarious video on YouTube that was a clip from Saturday Night Live's PUNCHED! bit. This is a screenshot of what I encountered:
Of course, this is not Jay's fault. How could he know that the video would be removed from YouTube? I encountered this all too often, though, when linking to articles, etc. If a website owner chooses to change their url style (which has undergone major shifts across the internet in blogging) - i.e. going from something like archive/category/000010.php to archive/url_now_is_readable_instead_of_cryptic - they break all of the links that were made to their website at one time. One solution I thought of is that instead of linking to specific urls, I should just link to a Google search term that will likely bring about the current url of the link I want people to access. The problem with this is the same as the problem with visual or audio content; what if Google disappears? Who would have thought in 1996 that Google was going to be a search giant monster and AltaVista would be nothing?
This is why I find it so important to host my own content. I hate it when things break. I don't understand why you would design a blog (or anything you put a lot of effort into) around a method that will naturally break as the years go on. If all you do is provide links to other stuff, then it is likely that some day, the content you worked to create will become meaningless. I like to have historical reference to who I am and what I do. Without working links, I can't. (This is my purpose, however, and I'm sure it does not match other's.) I limit what I put here even on the basis of whether or not I can quote or copy to embed someone else's content. I feel safe embedding the above screenshot because it is what I saw when I visited Jay's site and I'm not trying to blatantly steal his creativity. The line of stealing someone else's work becomes thinner, though, when you want to embed their complete thoughts and or creative works on your site. It is something one needs to be wary of. It is also the reason why the images I host on Flickr are there with the Creative Commons license of Share-Share Alike-Non Commercial (so is all the content I put on the web). I want people to feel comfortable taking and redistributing my works, as long as I am give credit and they do not use my works to make money. Why the last part? Because, I want to control making money with my content that I've worked hard to produce. It's that simple.
So, if you have any concern about the longevity of the work you do, it helps to think about these things. I'm certain that even since I became aware of this conundrum, there are plenty of items here that are broken. Every week, I search a bit for them and try to fix them. Since I don't want to be forced to do this for eternity (fixing past content every time I decide to change something or someone decides to remove what they have done), I'm going to be more cautious about what I post here and how I post it. And, I'm going to continue hosting my own content so I can retain this control.
