My new personal website
I don’t know whether it’s been a reaction to post-Musk Twitter from the people I read and talk with on Mastodon, but there seems to be a renewed interest in personal websites and hosting one’s own content.
Some people have been doing this for years, obviously—they never stopped—but like plenty of other people, I stopped writing about non-work-related topics on my own website and gave my content to Twitter instead.
Rightly or wrongly, I designed my business website to reflect my interests and personality. It acts as a filter to attract clients most suited to working with me. But there are plenty of topics I could write about that would be inappropriate on a website designed to attract clients.
A personal website is the better choice for this type of content, so last week, I designed one. I purposefully gave myself only a week to design and code its front end so I wouldn’t procrastinate and delay launching it any later than I needed to. Also, websites are meant to evolve, so the idea that this design was just “good enough” when I launched it seemed reasonable. And I already had the best-possible domain name, malarkey.co.uk.
malarkey (ma•la•ki) meaningless talk, bunkum, stuff & nonsense
This new website is a personal space, separate from my business. Personal websites offer the freedom to experiment with design and code away from the demands of client work. Knowing that my readership is likely highly tech-savvy and will use the most modern browsers is a bonus.
The site is a place for me to share my thoughts, post photographs in my own space as well as Instagram, and the occasional longer personal post.
I hope you’ll join me there once in a while.