If I should not return, think only this of me...

I’m about to go on leave for a week so thought I should add something here before I go. Little in (internet based) life is more depressing than page upon page of dead and forgotten blogs, twitter accounts and similar. Like a graveyard of the electronic age.

There was one I saw for a new library area that was opening up at a university once. It was announcing the opening for sometime in August 2008 and saying people should link to the Twitter account, keep an eye for exciting developments, check back after the event for photos and prize winners, contact their new media manager, etc.

I was reading it in March 2009 and there had still been no updates. You ended up thinking did the person with the CMS password die? Was there a massive fire and the whole place burned down? Is it some sort of elaborate Web 2.0 media hoax and Chris Morris is behind this somewhere? It really sent out the wrong message and if I had been interested in the new Bronhiddlitch Anglo-Saxon Library at the University of Wessex (or whatever it was for) it would have been a real disappointment and may have even led to me to not applying to study there.

The same is very true of commercial internet haunts. If the website hasn’t been updated for an age, the blog lies dormant, the messages on the forum or guestbook unanswered you can’t help feeling the place is no longer a going concern. That may not be accurate – they may be thriving off line – but the internet really does apply the maxim The First Bite Is With The Eye with ruthless efficiency.

Coming back to the education / University sector, TFBIWTE is clearly apparent but is something that can easily be gotten wrong as pages are often too austere or too busy. Clean pages are developed to show clear headed professionalism, but often look bare and uninviting. Social media is copied to make visually busy sites but these can be confusing and look unprofessional and be abandoned as well.

It’s possible to get a happy medium of course, but that is far harder than it would appear.

And with that I’m off into the Heart of Darkness. I’ll miss the next stage in this interesting programme but catch up when I return.