Personal stories on personal blogs are historical documents when you think about it. They are primary sources in the annals of history, and when people look back to see what happened during this time in our lives, do you want The New York Times or Washington Post telling your story, or do you want the story told in your own words?
– "Bring back personal blogging", The Verge.
The archives of long-running blogs are a window into the past in a way that the archives of newspapers and institutional publications aren’t – they’re personal. See for example Jason Kottke, Andrew Sullivan, the one-time blog Sambhar Mafia, even this blog (see a page from July 2007).
We very likely have more people blogging now than at any point in the age before social media – we haven’t lost as much as we think we have. It’s just that it’s gotten really hard to locate independent writers.
Twenty years ago these were most of the web, and made up most of the results of web searches.
Today between social media, search engine optimised websites, and search engines like Google prioritising their own products in results, that is no longer the case. Not by a long chalk.
But those websites still exist. Newsletters too.
Just like we’re not in traffic as much as are traffic itself, we can either resent the dominance of social media while posting there, or we can start blogging on our own site. Use it like you would Twitter or Facebook – post the same thing to social media if you like.
Ten, five, even just one year from now, revisiting posts will be looking through a window back into your life – and times, on your own terms.
WordPress.com and Tumblr (both owned by Automattic) are good places to start. Google is a good place to buy your domain name.