Freedom of speech

In which we ponder competition among blog hosting companies

Written by Forest Pines; published at 8:36 pm on January 10th, 2006.
Filed under: Geekery, Linkery, Political.

Back in the mists of time, I wrote about Jakob Nielsen‘s top ten blog design mistakes. Including: not having your own domain name. My response: there are several sites I read and respect that do do this, but if you want to be completely sure you control your own reputation, you need to control your domain name too.

One thing I didn’t consider, though, is that the people who host your site can, if they want, control what you put on it. Filter out things they don’t like. You could, for example, do what News Corporation subsidiary Myspace have been caught doing: censor links to video-hosting sites, presumably because these sites will soon become News Corp’s competitors when Myspace introduces its own video-hosting service. You might think you can say anything you like on the internet – but if you’re a Myspace user, that apparently doesn’t apply.

Keyword noise: anticompetitive, blog design, blogging, censorship, commerciality, competition, design, filtering, Jakob Nielsen, Myspace, News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch, usability, web design

2 comments on “Freedom of speech”

1. diamond geezer says:

   January 11, 2006 at 7:04 am

   Jakob’s rule about not being a proper blog unless you had your own domain name always struck me as a bit snobby. Content is always far more important than web address.

   But if Rupert Murdoch ever buys out Blogger, I promise I’ll reconsider.
2. Forest Pines says:

   January 11, 2006 at 7:20 am

   Well, yes, I agree with you, content is more important than anything else.

   Control over your own content is almost as important too – and even when Murdoch bought Myspace, I don’t think anyone anticipated that this might happen.