The ShenBot

So, after much debate and personal turmoil I have selected WordPress as my blog of choice. Why, you ask? Well, I have a confession. It wasn’t my first choice. I initially opted for a tumblr blog (or as tumblr fans call them, tumblelogs). I actually LOVE tumblr – it’s super easy to use and makes the act of blogging even easier than it already is. And let’s be honest – blogging is as easy as thinking … as that is kind of what it is … a well thought out stream of consciousness. Whether one chooses to post her/his thoughts online is another topic of discussion. I also love the fact that tumblr expands the ways in which people can blog – either by traditional hand to keyboard, mobile device or instant messaging software. I actually have another tumblelog that I started for work and on a past business trip to New York was able to take photos from my camera phone and post them directly to my blog – with the same easy as sending a text message.

ANYHOW,  I initially went with a tumblelog by the name moniker and my first post was about why I chose the name “The ShenBot.” (For all curious parties, click here.) But then I started trying to customize my tumblelog … and found it close to impossible. Sure it’s easy enough to change the site’s theme, but the straw that broke the camel’s back for me was trying to find a theme that had a blogroll (or in tumblr speak – a tumbleroll). I could not find a single one. Then it came to finding a custom theme or a hack in which I could manipulate the code. I am a fairly tech savvy person who works in this space on a day-to-day basis and I could not figure this out.

Blogrolls, it turns out, are extremely important to me. I have no idea why, but they are. I like the idea of being able to share sites that I love/like without having it worked into a post. I also like the idea that those sites will be easy to find instead of having to either read every post I have or conduct a search for something the reader may or may not know exists. So, in my world – blogrolls killed the tumblr star and here I am at WordPress.

One more confession – I actually love WordPress, too, but initially thought of using tumblr because it’s a spiffy little tool that’s on the up-and-up. I am not a fan of the Six Apart products – nothing against them, but I think WordPress is not only a more reliable tool I prefer what the platform offers in terms of user experience and customization. I also have a Vox account … I’m just not into it. I can go on and on about why I love WordPress, but frankly who has the time for that?

So here we are at The ShenBot. This blog was birthed as a requirement for my Master’s program – the Annenberg Program on Online Communities. However, I have every intention of using this as a vehicle for more than posting papers and thoughts on weekly readings. I am hoping that this becomes a space for me to vent, to critique, to praise and to discover new everythings.