ode - a simple personal publishing platform for the web

This very simple idea has become synonymous with popular, cutesy web services from Twitter to Tumblr. It is worth noting that this is not an invention of those services. What's more, there isn't anything unique about what they do that makes them better suited for writing less. (Writing more is the harder problem, both for writers and the tools they use.)

Writing less and posting more is a GREAT idea. Everything you write does not have to be an essay. Sometimes (often) a statement, link, photo, or other short form note can stand on its own. If we treated blogs/personal websites as conversations, à la Twitter, we might post more. And that would be a good thing.

I like long form content. I really do enjoy coming across informative or otherwise interesting longer posts. As you probably know if you've visited this site more than once, I'm predisposed to this kind of writing myself. But it is a lot of work. A willingness to invest the time and effort to openly write about thought-provoking ideas is admirable. (And I believe also rewarding.) But, as hundreds of millions of users of services like Twitter and Facebook attest to, quickly sharing short observations, funny comments, a snapshot, or other inconsequential moments can be a lot of fun. It seems that we sometimes forget that we can allow ourselves to be spontaneous -- even when it's not a requirement of the platform.

Those of us who use Ode, or other platforms that allow complete creative control over our content, have the best of both worlds.

We can post pictures of cats too...

And so much more.

The web doesn't make us choose one or the other.

Photos are a important part of just about every site, and a great thing to include on a blog. There are probably many ways to include photos. I tend to think broadly in terms of two:

• Photo galleries
• Individual photos

We've probably all seen plenty of both. There are many different ways to create photo galleries and just as many ways to present individual photos. This post a post about where to keep photos on your server and how to keep them organized. It's not a post about various applications, scripts, and styles for displaying photos. I do hope to write those posts too but this isn't that.

A flat file site like the kind you create with Ode is good for a lot of reasons - everything from flexible content creation to backup, moving your content from one hosting provider to another (or even moving to a new platform should you decide that you no longer want to use Ode), and for many other reasons as well. However, you should be careful about how you organize your content to avoid eventually running into problems.

Photos are a good example of something that you will either grow to love or hate about using Ode and for reasons that have little to do with Ode itself. If you keep things organized as you go, you'll love it. Of course the same thing could be said about managing the rest of your digital content from documents to music and video, and for that matter keeping your home clean, managing your finances, and much of the rest of your life as well. One of the more subtle advantages of using Ode is that it encourages to think and act in a way that is beneficial far beyond this project.

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Ode is very open-ended. That's one of it's great strengths.

• How/where you will host your site
• Transferring content to your public site
• Organizing content
• The tools use to write and edit posts
• The appearance and behavior of your site
• 3rd party services you use to enhance your site

These and many more choices are yours to make. Choice is in a lot of ways a very good thing. It means that you have the flexibility to do things in a way that makes sense for you and your unique set of circumstances.

When there is less flexibility then someone (whoever is in the position to make the decision) has to decide what is the best way for everyone. That may sound like a good idea, i.e. having someone who is very knowledgeable about a particular thing (an activity like posting to a website for example) make the best possible decision, and then push that well-informed choice out to everyone else. It would be a good way to do it, even the best way maybe, if it weren't impossible (and even nonsensical) in many cases.

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