14 January 2007

Parting is such sweet sorrow

By In Uncategorized

You might be wondering why I’m starting this site, since I already have a blog at GuySie.nl. There are several good reasons for the split:

  1. Potential employment
    I know it’s the web 2.0 thing to gain employment merely on the merit of your blog posts, but the world doesn’t work like that for most people. Most of us communication students are getting our first jobs at old-school brick & mortars, not high tech Valley start-ups. Consistently updating my blog has made it the highest ranker for a Google search on “Guy Sie”, which means that any potential employer checking my name will find it immediately. I ‘own’ my name on Google, which is great, but I’d prefer the first impression a potential employer has of me to be more… professional.
    Don’t misunderstand, I won’t be hiding this blog from them. In fact, I intend to link to new posts here. But I want a potential employer to see my serious side first: What I’ve done before, who I am, what my portfolio looks like. After that, he gets this site as a freebie.
  2. Personal/topical blog
    Blogposts can vary from personal to topical subjects. I tried to do both at GuySie.nl, which meant a lot of design/marketing/advertising things were blended with commentary about my personal life. It’s not necessarily bad, but a personal blog is hard to make interesting topically. S.oS will be exactly like the old site, but by moving the personal and linkblog aspects to S.oS I can develop GuySie.nl into a more topical blog.

  3. Name
    My name is fine, thank you for asking. But while owning your personal domain is still a great idea, it’s not quite as much fun to run a blog from it. It doesn’t say anything other than “this is my name”. I want my blog’s name to say something about me, to be my brand in all the senses of the word. Some people can make their name do that for them, some can’t. I’m afraid I’m in the latter category.
  4. Reach
    The Netherlands isn’t very big. 16 million people, just about, which pales in comparison to the non-Dutch speaking population on the internet. If you want to have an online presence you need to use a universal language, which brings us to…
  5. Language
    I write and speak Dutch fluently, but it’s not what I feel most comfortable in. Most of my youth was spent writing in English on BBS’s and the internet, where English still remains the dominant universal language. I’ve written reviews, short stories, articles, tutorials, flames, poetry, hatemail and love letters in English. I’ve written school reports in Dutch. The difference is obvious.

So I hope you all understand my choice and that the new site and switch to English won’t scare too many of you away. If you want to comment on something in Dutch as opposed to English, feel free. I wasn’t planning on forcing language fascism on anyone just quite yet.

1 Comment
  1. Aisha 15 January 2007

    Ik vroeg me al af waarom je niet meer gepost had op je andere blog sinds de kerstvakantie. 🙂

    En normaalgesproken zou ik ook in ‘t Engels gaan commenten omdat ‘t net zo makkelijk is, ware het niet dat praten in ‘t Engels (in z’n geheel dan) tegen m’n eigen broertje (oh sorry, _broer_) ergens toch gewoon niet klopt. o_O

    Reply

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