Something I've been pondering recently, esp after the recent Internet Archive troubles and a couple of former colleagues passing away: what is more likely to survive long-term (i.e.
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Something I've been pondering recently, esp after the recent Internet Archive troubles and a couple of former colleagues passing away: what is more likely to survive long-term (i.e. decades) if you get hit by a bus — your indie website, or your self-published books? I honestly think it's the latter, even if they languish in The Long Tail on Amazon. You're more likely to have your domain and/or web host expire, a technology on your web page go obsolete, etc.
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Richard MacManusreplied to Richard MacManus last edited by
I have been thinking whether I can create a business on making sure websites survive ("The 100 Year Website" might be my tagline), but then you look at the promises Evernote and some others made about long-term survival on the internet. Really hard to make that work. And I think even Mullenweg's company tried to offer a 'forever' solution for websites, but it had an exhorbitant price. So I guess they priced it out.
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Richard MacManusreplied to Richard MacManus last edited by [email protected]
Anyway, this is all to say: this is why I'm self-publishing my internet history books (I have another book just completed, currently in draft 2), as well as serializing them on my website. I think it's the books that will endure, even though I will do my best to make sure my website survives as long as possible this time (for a start, I'll never sell it!). And by endure, I just mean one day my distant relatives may be curious about what I did in the early 21st century, and find my books.
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@ricmac been thinking a lot about these subjects lately and I was specially impressed by Justin Hall's story, which I didn't know.
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@ricmac The Flickr Foundation has been working on a hundred year plan, it's one of our missions, and we've been getting some grant funding to scope out what that might look like. In case you didn't know about us, you can read more here.
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@rez_end I know about Justin Hall, but has there been a recent archiving story about him?
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@jessamyn That’s awesome, and yes have come across Flickr Foundation. I rely on Flickr a lot for images in Cybercultural, such a wonderful resource.
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@ricmac I got to know him through this thorough post https://www.michaeldean.site/p/the-first-online-writer
