While it feels strange to be writing the last ever post on Get Off The Bandwagon, this is more of a intermission than a eulogy.
As mentioned in the 2019 Year in Review, after twelve years of blogging at this domain, I’m moving my writing to my personal website later in the year. Having been in the web industry for nearly 20 years, and blogging intermittently throughout that time, it wasn’t until the last five or so years that it really took off consistently.
My websites have taken various forms over the years, from precursors to social media where photo albums and memories were shared, to more magazine-based iterations. The latest redesign of GOTB in 2015 – using the Hew WordPress theme from Automattic – strove for simplicity, but, with a lack of proper categories and menus, inadvertently lead to poor user experience, especially with navigation.
As the Hew theme is now well past its sell-by date, a refresh has been on my mind. Although I’m very proud of the variety of content on here, there has always been a strange juxtaposition between the hangover from review-style magazine content of old, and a leaning towards wanting more personal opinion and thought.
My definitive style has always been to write passively, as a voice of ‘Get Off The Bandwagon’, rather than myself – ‘we’ rather than ‘I’, if you prefer – but that does limit both the type of articles and tone of the writing. As such, this site has become heavily tech and review focused, rather than opinion-based editorial content, which is mirrored in the viewing statistics.
So it’s proved to be good timing all round, and the second half of this year will see me start blogging over at richpaul.co.uk. GOTB will remain until then, and will merely be redirected in the future, with none of the existing articles lost. For now, follow me on Twitter if that’s your thing.
Until then, see you on the other side. Rich.