harmless? bananas!

Considering that I spent almost the entire day tweaking and getting things right for this blog, I suppose it only makes sense to share why you’re reading, what you’re reading.

Ever since I started the original harmless? bananas! in 2003, and where we are now in 2009.. it was painfully obvious that the act of blogging, the scale of blogging.. or what it means to even be blogging, I outgrew my original blog.

The next step was really to get my own domain, but hosting a blog on my own domain doesn’t accomplish anything for what I’ve been thinking about:

Online Real Estate

Like some megalomaniac, I didn’t just want my own blog to publish on, I wanted my own network. It’s not a new idea, but I think in this regard, instead of having just one front, why not have three?

What you see in harmless? bananas! is really just one-third of the network I’m trying to build. It’s my personal front, where I get to be me, and blog in a style that is free-form, quirky, or basically a place I can make more mistakes with. Sort of like my own living room where I host certain types of conversations. I’ve added a mini-lifestream here, just for good measure.

The other two-thirds come from my public front which is litford.net (50% Developed) and my professional front, singularity industries (Undeveloped).

If you’ve made it this far, you might start to see what I’m driving at. 3 separate entities that are somehow still linked by a common thread. That’s the power of a network I guess? They’re little specialist areas that can tap on the strengths of each other, and cover the weakness of each other.

In my mind, that’s how the new entity of litford is supposed to exist. Not as fragmented personalities across the social web (different blogs, microblogs, social networks, media sharing.. etc), but as an integrated whole that shares the same name.

The other perk, is that I get hone my recently acquired skills in starting my own domain, understanding more about databases, experimenting with different blogging softwares and ultimately content management. The beautiful thing is that once I’m done with all the backend of automating my lifestreams and navigation woes.. I can just focus on the writing and producing content.