My online presence has shifted and changed over time. It seems to always be changing — and that’s not necessarily a bad thing either. Let me walk you through how I’ve been online (my personal brand) and the changes that have taken place. I’ve observed some fundamental shifts and I think it’s worth sharing.
August 2001 – Created a Website
It was time to venture onto the web full-time. I had been online in chat rooms and discussion boards, but not my own brand anywhere. So in August I registered this domain name – orangejack.com. The short version of why that name was that my name was already taken so I needed to get creative. I picked my favorite color (orange) then the first inanimate object I could think of. I thought of a jack. A new brand was born.
At this time I wanted a website that I could play with, learn more about design and technology, and see if I could use it to connect with others by publishing articles and asking for an email reply. Connection and communication was my goal from the begging.
July 2004 – Began to Blog
I began to learn about a new technology and way of communicating. It was called a blog and so I created an account with blogger.com (later to be purchased by Google and co-named Blogspot). I kept the branding the same by getting orangejack.blogspot.com and made a commitment to write something every day for a month. I found the concept of blogging a very interesting way to connect. A blog made it faster to publish articles and allowed engagement right on the site! Doing it every day got me into the habit of publishing. I also did a lot of reading of other people’s blogs to learn more. I asked other bloggers questions and just kept on going.
It all started with this little post on July 6, 2004 called “Red Trucks”:
This weekend I went to the local Lowe’s hardware store. My wife and I have a running joke that “the truck goes to Home Depot”. This weekend, it was Lowe’s instead. Oh, my truck? It’s a ‘96 Nissan Pickup…and it’s red!
So anyway, I went to Lowe’s this weekend. I pulled up into the parking lot and parked. And what to my wandering eyes should appear? 5 other red pickup trucks! And they were all parked together. I found it quite humorous. I parked beside a red Ford. Across from me was a red Dodge. On the other side of me was a red Toyota. There were two other red pickups that I couldn’t tell what they were.
So I guess others feel the same way…the truck goes to the hardware store!
August 2004 – Live Blogging/Crisis Blogging
Things changed fast only one month later when the summer of hurricanes began in Florida. I decided on a whim to blog straight through Hurricane Charley as it came right over our house. It was crazy! We were on wifi but it kept going in and out when we’d have a power blip. So I composed emails offline in Outlook and mailed them on dialup to ensure it being posted. You can actually go through the hurricane archives on the old blog. They are still there. Maybe my all-time favorite comment came from an man:
Hi there… My family and I live in Texas and are in no danger of Frances, but we have been glued to your Blog – that we came across by going to random blogs – since this frances started rearing her ugly head… Just thought we’d throw out a random thanks for a more human side of the picture… even as we sat on the edge of our seats and even argued as to what the thump was outside the boarded up window…. anytway, thanks for the coverage.
September 2004 – Sequential Series/2nd Blog
I was really getting the hang of blogging so I created Orangejack Blogging University, a series of posts interlinked to help someone begin blogging. It became quite popular and I’ve thought about doing it again someday.
Also in September I began a new blog that changed the way I thought about creating posts. At the time I would occasionally write about online marketing and how it effects ministry (I was a missionary at the time). When I posted something on my blog I would put it into a category. However, I began to realize that if I spun the “marketing” category out into a new blog, I would serve two audiences better. My friends visiting my personal blog didn’t necessarily care about marketing. My marketing friends didn’t necessarily care about my personal ramblings. The way I thought about it was if I were to write something and put it in the “marketing” category, I would instead go to that blog and post it there instead.
March 2005 – Building a Conference Blog
One of the projects I was working on at the time was an International conference to be held in Budapest. I thought it would be interesting to try and create a conference website all on blogspot.com. It went a bit against what a blog is usually about, but realizing that each post has it’s own unique web address, I realized with a little manipulation and hard coding I could turn it into a regular conference website! It was a fun tool to use to build and get some excitement from others who were going to attend. People “met” each other before they got there!
June 2005 – No More DreamWeaver
I finally changed all of my sites into blogs powered by the free software from Wordpress.org. It was a great move as I gained much more flexibility in what the sites could look like, but also easier to communicate. I was now running three blogs off of Wordpress: my personal blog (rob.orangejack.com), my family blog (orangejack.com), and my work blog.
January 2006 – Joined Flickr
Flickr.com was the first social network I joined not counting blogging. In fact, Flickr is really a photo blog and that’s how I use Flickr - that and to archive or show photos from a trip. What was interesting here is that I was not just having a way to deposit content online, but I was connecting with people and associating myself with others as connections.
May 2006 – Created Flickr Groups
In Flickr one can join different groups. I found one called “Orlando, FL” which was for photos of Orlando. I thought, “what about the people in Orlando?” So I created a group called “Central Florida Flickrs“. About 2 years later we have 600+ members, 12,000+ photos shared, and almost 200 discussion posts. What was so interesting about this was how we as members started to play games in the group by posting photos that related to another photo. Then people started organizing meetups to go shooting together. I really began to see something that was just a “group” turn into a “community”.
June 2006 – Joined Facebook
Facebook was the first community website I joined that worked. I got on MySpace long before but didn’t find it to be a great place for me to connect. Facebook was different. It was clean and provided all the tools I needed to connect and communicate with others. However, the thing I didn’t and still don’t like is that in order to participate you have to join. I like the openness of having blogs so anyone can stop by and interact, not just members. However Facebook has recently updated their design bringing huge improvements to communication there. I’ll post about this later.
July 2006 – Joined Twitter
I didn’t know what to make of Twitter at first. Microblogging was a strange concept – to communicate in less than 140 characters? When I could write a blog post and host the conversation? After using Twitter a while I realized that the conversation still took place and it was so much faster than creating a blog. I could get short thoughts published in an instant. What I’ve taken away from the microblog concept is that conversations can be faster and happen in bursts, not initiated by an “article”.
February 2008 – Share Blog
One of the things I love to do on my personal blog is share things I find online interesting. In fact, this is one of the concepts I have for starting a blog. Instead of forwarding silly emails to a bunch of people, I’d publish them on a blog and let the visitors find it if they wanted to. I began to play with Tumblr and its ability to automatically import items and post items there fast. But a few months later Google Reader, a tool I use to keep up with websites, made sharing my favorite items more robust. The only trouble with a share blog is that it doesn’t really host a conversation. It’s more of a “FYI” or “Hey, check this out” kind of site.
March 2008 – FriendFeed
Now a new site is available that has the potential to turn everything back around. Friendfeed will take all of my online presence sites and aggregate it into one place. That is very convenient. In addition, each item brought into my Friendfeed allows comments and conversation. And even more, I can just post something directly to Friendfeed. In this sense, it’s like a message board where I post new items to it (directly or imported from other sites) and others can comment.
August 2008 – Analyzing the Trends
I actually started writing this long post a month ago then sat on it. I knew it wasn’t done. Yesterday I finally wrote about some of the evolution of online communication on my personal blog. This is an on-going stroy but I find it facinating.
