How to abandon a USP, in one easy lesson
Look closely, and you might notice something different.
If you arrived at this URL expecting to find this site’s usual front page containing links to three blogs - Writing, Scribbling and Engaging - then your eyes are not deceiving you. An Unreliable Witness is now just one blog. How very mainstream and traditional of me.
Why? Oh, because.
The three blog format was my Unique Selling Point. My Big Idea. A big idea but, as it turned out and as I’m now prepared to admit, a rather impractical one. I accept defeat. It didn’t quite work. Some parts got updated more than others. I sometimes didn’t know which section was most appropriate for a particular entry. So the big idea is no more. I have killed it. Or rather them. The three blogs, that is. Sorry about that. Oh, don’t cry. It’s really not worth getting upset about. It’s only a website.
All the content has now been moved into the interminable mish-mash of entries that you can see here, featuring miscellaneous life events, post-it notes, unsent letters, musical thoughts, dream plays and other ideas that come into my diseased mind at inopportune moments.
Questions? Yes, you must have them.
First: what does this mean for you, the visiting reader skimming your way through your daily intake of frequently-updated personal websites?
Well, I think you should probably prepare yourself to put up with a certain degree of eclecticism. If, for instance, you only ever visited one of the three blogs because you didn’t like those weird stories about Jesus riding a bicycle through my flat or didn’t rate my taste in music and literature, then I can only offer my sincerest apologies that you’re going to have to grit your teeth and endure all those kinds of entries in future. Here. In one place.
Second, if you were kind enough to link to one particular section of An Unreliable Witness in the past, I would be grateful if you could change the web address to point to the much sleeker and snappier URL of www.unreliablewitness.com. And if you’re one of those fashionable people who browse blogs via feeds of one sort or other, you’ll need to update your feedreader of choice. Details can be found in the menu to your right - under ‘Feeds’, funnily enough.
So, welcome to the all new An Unreliable Witness, featuring the same old meaningless verbosity but in one convenient location. Hmm, I’m going to have to work on crafting that into a rather more appealing strapline.
Up until now, even if you couldn’t think of anything memorable about An Unreliable Witness, you could at least say that it was three blogs in one. That’s gone, I’m afraid. Gone and forgotten. However, if you can think of something new and equally memorable to say about this site, do please let me know. After all, a Unique Selling Point is so important these days, wouldn’t you agree?
As you were, then.