What’s Next?: The Story of My Website

My name is Olivia Gallucci, and I have been blogging since 2019. This post details the story of my website and what my plans are for the future.

History

Creation – 2019

I built my website, so that I could have a creative outlet. I wrote about whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. To this day, I continue to post whatever I want on my blog.

Over time, I began to spruce up my website. I enjoyed sharing media online in a format that was comfortable for me. I liked that I could stylize, arrange, and display images in different layouts, and convey ideas through the exact outline and structure I wanted.

College – 2019

During my final year of high school (2019-20), my content primarily surrounded college applications. After I entered my first year of university in August 2020, I began writing about student life at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT).

I wrote tutorials, opinion pieces, and sometimes published course content—with permission, of course.

Eventually, people started reaching out to me about collegiate education in computing. The most popular topics included applying to colleges, resume reviews, internships, friendship advice, course loads and holistic activities, RIT, and affordable academic resources.

Open source – 2021

I gained another group of followers after publishing content I wrote for the Humanitarian FOSS Development course at RIT. These folks were interested in my open source content.

🌸👋🏻 Let’s take this to your inbox. You’ll receive occasional emails about whatever’s on my mind—offensive security, open source, academics, boats, software freedom, you get the idea.

Join 4,144 other subscribers

Technical posts – 2022

In mid 2022, I began adding some technical posts. I enjoyed writing these, and some posts have become popular posts on release. These viewers focused on cybersecurity and open source content.

Generalists

There is one other group of people: the generalists. These people have an interest in my personal life and academic achievements.

Audience: recognizing the divide

When I asked my viewers about what content they would value most from me, I got a variety of responses. Most people—not by much—want more technical content from me.

My blog posts on RIT have become influential. To this day, I receive multiple messages each week from parents, students (prospective and otherwise), and occasionally alumni for advice, questions, and assistance.

Limitations

However, RIT’s academic policies and navigating college are not what I love writing about anymore.

I am glad I have been able to provide resources for students, parents, and alum. Unfortunately, this is just not where my heart is anymore.

If you have a specific question, please reach out to me. If I receive similar questions, I can publish a post on that topic.

Security and open-source

I have gained a new group of followers interested in cybersecurity and technical content.

I hope to have a strong security component to my blog in future years.

Again, I will continue to post about whatever I want, but my interest surrounds technical content now.

Sponsorship

I receive emails about sponsored posts and other forms of sponsorship. My blog is about whatever I want, my audience knows that, but I do not think many sponsors do. If you are a sponsor considering sending me an email, please address why my audience should care about your sponsorship. :)

In Is Blogging Too Saturated? Here’s How To Avoid Failure by HubSpot, they recommend considering the following before publishing a blog post:

Why are you blogging this information?
What impact do you hope to bring with your blog?
What does your audience need to learn?
How does your audience like to consume information?
What demographics define your audience?

I am working on a media page that will cover sponsorship information, so that it can be easily found on my website.

Posting schedule

I do not have a posting schedule, and I will continue to lack a posting schedule because I feel pressure to post content.

[Social media] puts a lot of pressure on what is fundamentally a creative process. I’ve talked to repeated plagiarists who say ‘I felt pressure to put up this many articles or podcasts or videos.’
Jonathan Bailey in How the internet gets people to plagiarize each other – Vox

Ensuring my viewers know that my posting schedule is variable (and may be silent for months) helps limit my stress. Although, when I go a long time without posting, people send me encouraging notes, thinking I have become ill, which I think is sort of funny.

Future plans

Website

I wondered if I should move to GitHub or another platform, so I read Daniel Miessler’s post, So You Want to Start a Blog.

Every few years a new blogging platform comes along that is the slickest looking thing around. Blogger, Tumblr, Medium, Squarespace, etc—they all promise the world and end up going out of business eventually. Or worse, they sell out due to financial hardship or greed.

Either way, you’re left doing a migration that takes tons of time and probably messes your site up in the process. Don’t use them.
Daniel Miessler in So You Want to Start a Blog.

I think Miessler’s logic is sound. Thus, I will continue to host my content on my website, and I will not be transitioning to any third-party platforms.

Outreach

I love it when people contact me for advice or support.

In the past, I have tried to respond to emails within 48 hours. I believe this is the most respectful thing to do: “treat others how you want to be treated,” right?

Unfortunately, responding to messages has become too demanding; I am a student and work part-time. Although I love my blog and appreciate you all, I am only one person.

Thus, I am creating default responses to messages I receive through email, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Discord, which will provide a disclaimer that I may be unable to respond.

Although the best solution would be to have more time to respond to messages, unfortunately, that is unfeasible for me currently.

Contact information and Discord

A friend of mine recommended I create a Discord. I am unsure about this since I closed comments on my blog due to harassment and spam concerns.

If you want to send me a message, please contact me through email, LinkedIn, or Twitter. My Calendly is also available for anyone who prefers to video chat.

Conclusion

I hope you found this post entertaining and informative. If you are interested in more of my web design and web content, consider reading posts under webdev.