The new banner has making me rethink my whole blogging operation and I'm not sure what to do. Hence my writing this blog post in the hope that somebody might have a bright idea.
I'm tempted to ditch 'The Spine' identity. I chose that blog title nearly 10 years ago and it's been as useful as it's also been really unhelpful. I don't like it when people call me 'The Spine' because it sounds a pretentious thing to call yourself. I've never liked that whole side of the internet were ordinary folk call themselves 'OrcRanger' or 'NightshadeBladder'. At the best it sounds juvenile. At worst, slightly psychotic. I've never actually identified myself as 'The Spine'. That was just the blog I write and it was only called 'The Spine' because it was originally meant to be a satirical news blog filled with backbone. Then, as it moved to become my own blog, I changed it to mean 'spine' as in 'thorn'. It was meant to be sharp and prickly. Now I'm not sure what it means.
I want a change because I particularly get annoyed that some people still confuse me with 'The Spine blogger', an infinitely more popular blogger than I'll ever be. She/he has been writing a blog about orthopaedics (I know!) since 2009 (I started to blog in January 2006) and the appeal of that blog just baffles me. The latest post alone has 134 comments! I'd make deals with the devil to get that kind of following. That one post has more comments than I get in an entire year of writing/drawing a blog post every single day. It's the kind of statistic that just makes me want to give up because it makes me realise how little popular 'magic' I have. I'm either a personality free zone (very likely) or I'm just not intelligent enough (certainly true). I know I jump around too much. My blogging follows my interests and projects, though satire, comedy and my love of writing, has always been somewhere in the mix.
In addition to The Spine Blogger, I have other identity confusions on Twitter. The only time people talk to me there is when they confuse me with The Spine, Britain's most brutal race. Messages to me usually read '@TheSpine nearly killed me today' or '@TheSpine is evil', neither of which refer to me but refer to the 268 mile race. It's really annoying being less popular that the abstract concept of a long distance mountain race that leaves people needing hospital treatment.
All of which makes me think it might be time to change my blog around. I want to move to a blog that more closely identifies with me and not this mysterious 'Spine' character which I've never really played at all. I think if people think 'Ah, I'll visit David Waywell's blog', they might see me as a real person and not as this strangely disconnected voice coming from behind an oddly named blog. Because, the truth be told, I write this blog because I like talking to people and I like people talking to me. I write it to make friends and, truth also be told, I make very few.
So, I'm not sure how I might do this. If I moved to a more suitable domain name, I wouldn't get the traffic this blog gets each day simply on account of it having been around so long. Google wouldn't be so kind because my Pagerank would reset to the lowest. Could I link two blogs under one domain? Should I change the name of this blog even if that doesn't match the domain name? Should I post to two sites concurrently? I have no idea if I'll do this but I'm sick of being the least successful 'Spine' around. I think it would be rejuvenating being the most successful version of me that I can manage given my limited ability and resources.
The question is: how to do this right and not find myself sitting on this side of a blog that would lucky to get three hits a day?
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