explodedlibrary.info

first impressions of Vox and pondering the big blogging conundrum

I'm taking a break from this hiatus to mention a new blogging service I've been playing around with lately. Vox (previously known as Comet) is a Six Apart product, currently on an invitation-only preview release. Here's my very rudimentary Vox page. I don't quite know how to describe it. Is it the love child of LiveJournal and TypePad? It seems a bit more polished than LiveJournal, but it lacks all of the customization I'm used to with TypePad. Most annoyingly, Vox does not allow comments from non-Vox members, which damages its blogging credentials - even LiveJournal allows this as an option. The other thing that it's missing is the creation of communities, such as http://community.livejournal.com/libraries/. On the other hand, it has some appealing privacy features. I like the idea of having one blog where I can publish things to the entire world, but also allows me to have posts viewable only by friends or family. I particularly like how it's "friends or family" - because the two groups are very distinct, there's all sorts of things I'd like to share with friends which I wouldn't want my mother reading and vice versa. Even so, Vox isn't alone in offering this. I recall that Yahoo 360 offers customizable access levels - but that didn't appeal to me in other ways. Also, LiveJournal, with its friend filtering, allows this as well.

Edit: Here's some more background about Vox.

The big blogging conundrum, as I experience it, is that I want to share my experiences with other people and make connections that way, but I still have expectations of privacy. I don't want to share everything I write with everyone. My solution has been to scatter my writing - from the explodedlibrary to the explodedlibrary bunker to my LiveJournal to a password-protected blog for close friends and family. And it's not working. I'm spread too thin. It's also because of various changes in my life, I have less time for blogging than I used to.

Not everybody is as reserved as me and has these problems with mixing the private and the public. Good for them - we all need to find our own answers to these questions

I had better finish now before I start rambling - but I'm glad that the act of writing tonight has given me some ideas to ponder of how to find a better mix.

winter pause

Winter has finally come to the Blue Mountains and I'm glad for it. After almost of a week of rain, Sassafras Gully should be closer to the temperate rain forest that it is meant to be. I am looking forward to seeing its waterfalls cascading at more than a sad trickle.

I have a new blog-related project which I'm working on and is consuming most of my creative energy at this point. I've decided to give it the attention that it needs, even if it means putting this blog on a hiatus for a little while. Not that the explodedlibrary will be totally neglected. In the next month or so, I will be playing with aspects of the blog's design.

Currently playing in iTunes: Common People by William Shatner