Posts tagged: internet
The internet… real life… reality… friendship… relationships… modern society… solitude… happiness… peace…
These are the things that occupy my thoughts often. And they are, in one way or another, the reasons I took some time off from the Internet again this Fall. Why do I do it? Why do I turn my back on all the amazing people and sights and sounds and the never-ending buzz of this great hive we call the internet? Because it is the single most effectual action I know of for adjusting my perspective on my life and the world around me. I don’t know if there is some sort of psychological scale for measuring cognition and focus and a sense of being present in one’s own life, but if there is I am positive that whenever I step away from the buzz my score goes off the charts. I can’t quite figure out an easy clever way of describing the phenomenon, but it is absolutely real.
What I’m finding is that, as a 33 year old man, I’m still not sure how I feel about this brave new world of technology. The irony being that I make my entire living designing and building web applications! I literally help MAKE the internet! Ha! This thing I love, and am pretty damn good at, is the thing my subconscious mind (and my conscious one) is somehow trying to get away from.
So you see my dilemma. I love the internet! I think you all are spectacularly fascinating people! I honestly do. However, when I ignore your collective cacophony and retreat into the quiet solitude of a more analog existence, my mind literally changes. (And I use the word literally with total understanding of what it means. I do believe that it literally changes. Any cheap brain scanners on eBay?) The rhythm and meter of life begin to change. The change is quick and dramatic, and as the new groove overtakes the old one, the living of it starts to sound like a whole new song. The syncopated staccato crash-pattern of the digital morphs itself into the long and lyrical aria of the analog. The change always surprises me. It feels foreign at first, and then quickly feels like home. And when it comes, the craving for an unbroken real life state of mind becomes, at times, overwhelming. Part of me sincerely hopes I am not fading off into the Grey Havens of the internet, but I cannot deny that another part of me wants nothing more.
I may write more on this, as it is on my mind often these days (though I often wonder if I’m getting more eye-rolls than amens when I talk about it). For now just know that it’s not you — it’s me.
Let me start by saying, this is not an announcement of a redesign or feature upgrade; this is a look at the forthcoming re-envisioning of our website and our business. … Our new mission is much more focused: The new Virb is one of the easiest and most affordable ways to build an elegantly simple website. That’s it.
This is such great news. I’ve been saying for a while that Virb needed a fundamental retooling. It was hopelessly lost somewhere between Facebook, MySpace and Tumblr. I had fallen in love with it as an alternative to MySpace back when MySpace was “a thing.” It was well-designed, clean, minimal, extremely flexible, and had a great community (all the things I love about Tumblr nowadays). Over time though, things changed and Virb just didn’t feel relevant anymore. Like, at all (at least to me). They tried “re-launching,” but I don’t think anyone really cared. Despite all that, I was sincerely rooting for them. They are brilliant designers and craftsmen and they seem like good people.
I’m excited to see what they’ve come up with. I think there is a definite niche in the market if they hit the sweet spot. And frankly, I like that they are charging for it. It means people will take it seriously and it will hopefully turn into a nice sustainable business. (sidenote: I’m still curious to see what David and the Tumblr gang have up their sleeve for eventually getting this thing to pay for itself. I have no doubt they will, just curious to see what form that will take.)
Anyway, GOOD LUCK VIRB!!
