Shyzer.com

Just because you run a blog, that does not mean you run a website. Got it?

Something that used to only irk me has grown into a full blown annoyance as time elapsed. You have no idea how many this I’ve been mentioning Shyzer to somebody and they or someone in close proximity would say something along the lines of, “Oh cool! You know, I run a website too!” My ears would perk up and my eyes would glow because in all honesty, it’s not everyday that you meet a fellow webmaster; someone who knows all too well the joys and pains of running an almost figmented project, but one that can cause far too real stress and joy. So naturally, I’d ask what their site address was and as time has passed, I’ve received more and more responses resembling something like, “You can find it at www dot livejournal dot com slash users slash shitty pointless site slash I’ll never be going to read it because you just led me to believe you actually ran a website.”

Shyzer has only been around for 34 months and yet according to many companies that track blog history, Shyzer could be considered a father, maybe even a slightly young and cool granddad, of blogs. In 2002, there were only around 100,000 blogs on the Internet. Today, most counts range from a minimum of 20 million to a maximum of 60 million. This amazing jump since Shyzer’s birth can be attributed to the many free and shitty blog services like Livejournal, Xanga, Blogspot, etc. that have exploded into mainstream popularity. On one hand, you might think this is great. More blogs means more information and more content to read. One might even argue that with new blogs competing for a relatively limited number of possible visitors, the quality of writing might improve across the blog scene, resulting in the weak being eliminated in a sort of electronic Darwinian fashion.

The only problem with this argument is that 98.52% of these blogs suck. First off, most of these blogs out there are dead space. People who think I take too long to update Shyzer would be shocked to learn how many and how long the vast majority of blogs out there go untouched. Weeks if not months go by without an update, leading to only helping clog the Internet even more and denying a possible useful username for somebody who might actually use it more than once every quarter. But let’s say you happen to find a blog that is actually updated at least once a week. What are you most likely to find? A) A blog which does nothing but recap in a boring fashion the mundane events of the author’s day. B) A blog which takes itself far too seriously and whose author thinks he or she is an actual “player” on the Internet scene who has some sort of power. Or if you’re really lucky, C) A blog so far learning to one end of the political spectrum that it serves as nothing more than a tool of alienation to 99% of the people who happen to find it.

I’m not knocking the people who actually run these sites. I know some people do option A so that they can keep in touch with friends and family. That’s fine and dandy. Hell, that’s what Shyzer was started for. What I’m taking issue with is people who lead others to think they actually run a fully developed website when they don’t. If you didn’t have to code any of the HTML, you run a blog. (and no points are scored if you’re only picking the color and background from the main menu of your Livejournal.) If you don’t have any subpages, you run a blog. If you don’t own a domain and pay a hosting fee, you run a blog. If 99% of your energy is devoted to typing a post, you run a freaking blog.

And I’m not even counting all the crappy Angelfire and Geocities pages out there, because in all honesty, those are still websites. I will guarantee you that over 90% of any successful website out there started on Angelfire, Geocities, or some other free web hosting company. It’s where new webmasters go to learn, to take their licks, and to see what works and what doesn’t. And they can do it for free. Hell, I know I did back before Shyzer was even a figment of my imagination. The difference between these and the aforementioned free blogging services and that with these, you still are working with HTML or php or some sort of basic webmaster skills. It might not be any more advanced than elementary based skills, but everybody has to start somewhere. So while I cringe when somebody gives me a web address that is painfully long and hosted on a free server, I’ll still check it out, because the Angelfires of today are the Shyzers of tomorrow.

I know this may seem pointless to most people. I know the two words “blog” and “website” may seem interchangeable and that their usage is semantic to most people, but to many of us who actually run a website, the difference is monumental, almost to the degree of insulting. So do me a favor. If you run a blog on a free blogging service, just call it what it truly is; a blog. When you start messing with MySQL databases and pissing away time and energy trying to solve the CSS Box / Internet Explorer compatibility issue, then you can call your blog a website. Until then, stop pissing me off. Thanks.