Have a personal web site(writing.markchristian.org)
writing.markchristian.org
Have a personal web site
https://writing.markchristian.org/2019/04/29/personal-web-sites/?c=1
414 comments
Some of the most interesting things online are people writing about things they are passionate about, for the sake of writing about them. At least in my opinion, so it’s fair to say that I agree with the author.
I think it’s an equally delightful experience to journal about things though. I do it from time to time, when some subject just needs to get written down, almost as though the journaling is me thinking out loud on something. I could certainly do this in an old fashioned journal, or keep things to myself, but in my experience, I’ve learned a lot about something by having to write about it in a way that anyone could read. Which includes explaining things that are obvious to me, but not to you.
I know it’s not for everyone, and I respect that, but if you do think out loud, then do us all a favour and share the things that are most important to you. I think it’ll help keep the internet much more interesting in the age of social media.
If we can find it anyway, with google down-prioritising personal blogs.
I think it’s an equally delightful experience to journal about things though. I do it from time to time, when some subject just needs to get written down, almost as though the journaling is me thinking out loud on something. I could certainly do this in an old fashioned journal, or keep things to myself, but in my experience, I’ve learned a lot about something by having to write about it in a way that anyone could read. Which includes explaining things that are obvious to me, but not to you.
I know it’s not for everyone, and I respect that, but if you do think out loud, then do us all a favour and share the things that are most important to you. I think it’ll help keep the internet much more interesting in the age of social media.
If we can find it anyway, with google down-prioritising personal blogs.
The saddest part about personal websites now is that if someone googles your name, your presence on social media sites, an about page of a project or company you worked for, or any news outlet article where your name is mentioned will rank first and ahead of any personal website.
I understand if one's full name combination is too common to show every personal website, but I feel like if a unique name is googled, or there's one or two decidedly well known person(s) of that name, and that person has authored a personal site, search engines should prioritize that on the first page, if not the very first result(s).
Try googling for John Carmack, Barack Obama, or (op) Mark Christian. What's the SEO required to get your personal page to be the first result on a search engine?
I understand if one's full name combination is too common to show every personal website, but I feel like if a unique name is googled, or there's one or two decidedly well known person(s) of that name, and that person has authored a personal site, search engines should prioritize that on the first page, if not the very first result(s).
Try googling for John Carmack, Barack Obama, or (op) Mark Christian. What's the SEO required to get your personal page to be the first result on a search engine?
In Finland it is illegal to google for applicant's online presence, because of the possibility of judging the candidate because of misidentification. You have to have applicant's permission to that. And I am glad, because one of my name doubles isn't very representative person according to their online presence.
I started running a vanity domain name around 2000, for email and Web, and have a few thoughts based on that...
Hosting chronology something like: home Linux box on ADSL, 2 different shared hosters, 1U in a colo facility, back to earlier shared hoster.
For my real-name vanity domain, I went with a `.org`, since I didn't want to be a `.com` in personal life, though today I'd prefer `.net`. (The longer story behind this is that, early in dotcoms, I very quickly got tired of being at social parties of grad students, with MBA students always wanting to talk to me for startup reasons. Also, CS departments and culture were changing due to the gold rush. Going "non-profit" was an idealistic youth reaction.)
The reasons I keep the vanity domain and hosting include:
(1) I'm not signing over rights to some snooping companies to snoop on my email, nor will I implicitly endorse that practice. (IMHO, the current practice of corporate snooping on everyone's private communications is a bad for society. All this time, we techies have been shirking our responsibility to advise people about what they're signing away, and why that's an undesirable direction. I haven't done my part, but I'll try not to make it worse.)
(2) The vanity domain name gives me flexibility for where&how I host, and doesn't lock me into anyone. (Though I'll remain loyal to a hoster who's worked well, even if that means my site is not a showcase for a currently popular service. I've done novel things on AWS professionally, and I shouldn't have to prove anything with my quaint little personal site.)
(3) I've run the canonical Web pages for various niche open source projects, and there's never been an obviously good third-party permanent home for them. (I did almost move those projects to a `git`-centric third-party service, fairly recently, but then my first choice service was acquired by a very different corporate culture, and this also raised the question of how my second choice is going to change (due to competition, or presumably being courted for acquisition). Moving is a lot of trouble to go to, for a situation that might make me want to move again soon after that, so I stick with my ancient site design and hoster.)
I have mixed feelings about the Web site's dated visual design, and I think this is a consideration for anyone who makes a Web presence that will last for years... Mine has looked almost identical for ages, and now feels personally "genuine" to me, compared to better but generic modern looks. While the look stayed the same, the implementation has moved from `table`, to CSS that mimiced the `table` look, to CSS that's responsive while still respecting user's preferred font size. In parallel, there was also a move from HTML4-ish, to XHTML, to HTML5. Along the way, I dropped some unnecessary features that were flashy when I did them, like code syntax coloring (for which I rigged up Emacs into site generation).
I suppose a dated-looking site filters out job opportunities from people who insist that one's personal Web site showcase their best frontend practices. It could stand another look, at tweaks or makeover or complete rethinking, but I'd rather invest unpaid time in contributing to an open source project or techie community, than futzing around with the vanity domain.
You might keep updating your own site, but at some point you might have better things to do, so try to leave it in a style you won't mind being frozen at for years.
Hosting chronology something like: home Linux box on ADSL, 2 different shared hosters, 1U in a colo facility, back to earlier shared hoster.
For my real-name vanity domain, I went with a `.org`, since I didn't want to be a `.com` in personal life, though today I'd prefer `.net`. (The longer story behind this is that, early in dotcoms, I very quickly got tired of being at social parties of grad students, with MBA students always wanting to talk to me for startup reasons. Also, CS departments and culture were changing due to the gold rush. Going "non-profit" was an idealistic youth reaction.)
The reasons I keep the vanity domain and hosting include:
(1) I'm not signing over rights to some snooping companies to snoop on my email, nor will I implicitly endorse that practice. (IMHO, the current practice of corporate snooping on everyone's private communications is a bad for society. All this time, we techies have been shirking our responsibility to advise people about what they're signing away, and why that's an undesirable direction. I haven't done my part, but I'll try not to make it worse.)
(2) The vanity domain name gives me flexibility for where&how I host, and doesn't lock me into anyone. (Though I'll remain loyal to a hoster who's worked well, even if that means my site is not a showcase for a currently popular service. I've done novel things on AWS professionally, and I shouldn't have to prove anything with my quaint little personal site.)
(3) I've run the canonical Web pages for various niche open source projects, and there's never been an obviously good third-party permanent home for them. (I did almost move those projects to a `git`-centric third-party service, fairly recently, but then my first choice service was acquired by a very different corporate culture, and this also raised the question of how my second choice is going to change (due to competition, or presumably being courted for acquisition). Moving is a lot of trouble to go to, for a situation that might make me want to move again soon after that, so I stick with my ancient site design and hoster.)
I have mixed feelings about the Web site's dated visual design, and I think this is a consideration for anyone who makes a Web presence that will last for years... Mine has looked almost identical for ages, and now feels personally "genuine" to me, compared to better but generic modern looks. While the look stayed the same, the implementation has moved from `table`, to CSS that mimiced the `table` look, to CSS that's responsive while still respecting user's preferred font size. In parallel, there was also a move from HTML4-ish, to XHTML, to HTML5. Along the way, I dropped some unnecessary features that were flashy when I did them, like code syntax coloring (for which I rigged up Emacs into site generation).
I suppose a dated-looking site filters out job opportunities from people who insist that one's personal Web site showcase their best frontend practices. It could stand another look, at tweaks or makeover or complete rethinking, but I'd rather invest unpaid time in contributing to an open source project or techie community, than futzing around with the vanity domain.
You might keep updating your own site, but at some point you might have better things to do, so try to leave it in a style you won't mind being frozen at for years.
I would consider being an online ghost as a great compliment with how everything has been lately. There is way too much public information being pumped out for no reason at all.
A lot of commentary around recent development on the web kind of falls into a common theme of "Wouldn't it be cool if there was a way to do WWW like it was 1997 again?"
The thing that makes a personal webpage now different from a personal webpage in 1997 is this: Back then you could expect to immediately rank #1 on your own name, and you would even have a decent chance of ranking for some keywords related to content that you put up. Nowadays, if you're unlucky and you have a name that's somewhat common, or even just a single other person exists with a strong online footprint that has the same name as you, then you won't even rank for your own name any more. If you want any of your actual content to rank, then the chances of making that happen are even slimmer.
More eyeballs on the internet means greater incentives to put content online that will get noticed, which means that commercial interests will throw money and resources at making that happen which a personal side project can't compete with. More content online means search engines get to be pickier about what they show to users. The cost/benefit calculation has changed dramatically, especially around how much content you have to put up and how frequently you have to put up content, because search engines heavily penalize content for being old or stale even when content ages well when it's good and even when you actually write on stuff that you are a real authority on and even when the web is desperately in need of less of the "sponsored" kind of content and more of the "independent & authoritative" kind of content.
So in order to truly solve the problem of making it worthwhile again for people to have personal websites, one first needs to solve the discovery problem.
I think somebody should invent a search engine to do that.
I think that when people put up personal webpages now, they should adopt a "fediverse" technology stack to turn their personal webpages into a social-media-like experience that allows for an alternative vector of discovery next to keyword search.
I think that policymakers should reverse the current trend wherein they put liabilities on website owners & operators that a private person doing a personal webpage can't possibly shoulder.
So, in conclusion: Bring back some of the goodness of the WWW of 1997 again. I'm all for it. But the technology community has a loooong way to go, before that can become a reality.
The thing that makes a personal webpage now different from a personal webpage in 1997 is this: Back then you could expect to immediately rank #1 on your own name, and you would even have a decent chance of ranking for some keywords related to content that you put up. Nowadays, if you're unlucky and you have a name that's somewhat common, or even just a single other person exists with a strong online footprint that has the same name as you, then you won't even rank for your own name any more. If you want any of your actual content to rank, then the chances of making that happen are even slimmer.
More eyeballs on the internet means greater incentives to put content online that will get noticed, which means that commercial interests will throw money and resources at making that happen which a personal side project can't compete with. More content online means search engines get to be pickier about what they show to users. The cost/benefit calculation has changed dramatically, especially around how much content you have to put up and how frequently you have to put up content, because search engines heavily penalize content for being old or stale even when content ages well when it's good and even when you actually write on stuff that you are a real authority on and even when the web is desperately in need of less of the "sponsored" kind of content and more of the "independent & authoritative" kind of content.
So in order to truly solve the problem of making it worthwhile again for people to have personal websites, one first needs to solve the discovery problem.
I think somebody should invent a search engine to do that.
I think that when people put up personal webpages now, they should adopt a "fediverse" technology stack to turn their personal webpages into a social-media-like experience that allows for an alternative vector of discovery next to keyword search.
I think that policymakers should reverse the current trend wherein they put liabilities on website owners & operators that a private person doing a personal webpage can't possibly shoulder.
So, in conclusion: Bring back some of the goodness of the WWW of 1997 again. I'm all for it. But the technology community has a loooong way to go, before that can become a reality.
Couldn't agree more.
A place on the internet that you own and can write your thoughts down is very valuable. Yes, there are other services that you can leverage (medium, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, stack overflow, to name a few, depending on your content and desired reach) but your content there will alwybe subject to the whims of others. Big companies aren't always going to have your best interest at heart.
It's a bit of a pain to set up, but as the article states, you get your own space. Writing is one of the ways I learn best, and any writing I do is highly leveragable and can be used by folks far into the future. With your own site, you also have, again as the article states, a place to do low risk but still meaningful technical exploration.
I have had my own site for almost 20 years and look forward to having it for 20 more.
Also, see this post from Dion Almaer about bringing content back to his site vs a third party service:
https://blog.almaer.com/almaer-com-reopens-for-business/
A place on the internet that you own and can write your thoughts down is very valuable. Yes, there are other services that you can leverage (medium, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, stack overflow, to name a few, depending on your content and desired reach) but your content there will alwybe subject to the whims of others. Big companies aren't always going to have your best interest at heart.
It's a bit of a pain to set up, but as the article states, you get your own space. Writing is one of the ways I learn best, and any writing I do is highly leveragable and can be used by folks far into the future. With your own site, you also have, again as the article states, a place to do low risk but still meaningful technical exploration.
I have had my own site for almost 20 years and look forward to having it for 20 more.
Also, see this post from Dion Almaer about bringing content back to his site vs a third party service:
https://blog.almaer.com/almaer-com-reopens-for-business/
Completely agree with the article. I think it's very unfortunate that so many think a LinkedIn or StackOverflow profile is a viable replacement for a custom-made website that can portray you in any light you so choose.
I've been told several times that I was Googled prior to interviews/meetings and have heard great things about my website, my online presence, my books (I have an "author" card when people Google me), etc. Whatever you do to make you stand out is a boon.
I've been told several times that I was Googled prior to interviews/meetings and have heard great things about my website, my online presence, my books (I have an "author" card when people Google me), etc. Whatever you do to make you stand out is a boon.
I've had a personal website online since around 1996.
I make sure its offensive and hilarious.
This is not a new issue lol.
I don't think everyone must have a website, but I do think many more people would if they realised that the cost and difficulty of setting one up are much lower than they used to be.
A personal site can be about pretty much whatever you want, and look how you want it to look. It doesn't need to be a sales pitch, or on topic all the time. It doesn't need to come top in google when you search for your name. You get to decide why you're building it and who your target readers are (if any).
A personal site can be about pretty much whatever you want, and look how you want it to look. It doesn't need to be a sales pitch, or on topic all the time. It doesn't need to come top in google when you search for your name. You get to decide why you're building it and who your target readers are (if any).
Like almost everyone I've done the blogging thing on blogging platforms, on hosted traditional sites, on github with jekyll, etc. At some point I always get tired of dealing with it, question why I am even posting something, and what the whole point of it is.
Essentially what I want is a journal, and as my vanity continues be killed, I'm sure I'll eventually go to using an actual paper journal.
Right now I am one step away, I've been using gopher to blog on SDF.org. A huge reduction in audience, and since it is text based, its about as simple as you can get.
Essentially what I want is a journal, and as my vanity continues be killed, I'm sure I'll eventually go to using an actual paper journal.
Right now I am one step away, I've been using gopher to blog on SDF.org. A huge reduction in audience, and since it is text based, its about as simple as you can get.
I don't judge a person's technical skill through this metric (or at least I make an attempt not to), but it's rather noticeable when someone has nothing going on online. A blank GitHub, no website, no projects, etc. For an employed person, eh, whatever, maybe they just have a life.
But for a student? I'll admit I get a little suspicious. I'm not saying students should have a huge roster of projects and crazy extracurriculars. But something like a simple GitHub projects site or more than 50 commits in a year goes a long way to making yourself seem like an active, competent developer. I can count the number of people I've met with semi-active GitHubs at my school on one hand. That's not exactly a vote of confidence for my school's CS program.
But for a student? I'll admit I get a little suspicious. I'm not saying students should have a huge roster of projects and crazy extracurriculars. But something like a simple GitHub projects site or more than 50 commits in a year goes a long way to making yourself seem like an active, competent developer. I can count the number of people I've met with semi-active GitHubs at my school on one hand. That's not exactly a vote of confidence for my school's CS program.
Some people like to be ghosts online but I really do like to post and write about my experiences whenever I can and it is nice to look back and see what I was doing a couple of months or years ago.
Personally, a website I can just do whatever on is great and I don't have to be worried about a platform's limitations, requirements, or nuances.
Most people prefer simplicity of networks like Twitter, facebook, etc but I really like having my own blog where one blog post is 50 words and another is 1500 words and many other things at the same time. And my individual pages can be anything from experiments to documentation.
Personally, a website I can just do whatever on is great and I don't have to be worried about a platform's limitations, requirements, or nuances.
Most people prefer simplicity of networks like Twitter, facebook, etc but I really like having my own blog where one blog post is 50 words and another is 1500 words and many other things at the same time. And my individual pages can be anything from experiments to documentation.
> You should...
Except for all the reasons you shouldn't. The biggest reasons is that if putting up a website doesn't feel like a good use of time, it's probably better to just not have one.
An alternative way to think about it is this... is it a good business decision to de-prioritize talking to people who don't have a website? I'd be real surprised if the answer was yes.
Except for all the reasons you shouldn't. The biggest reasons is that if putting up a website doesn't feel like a good use of time, it's probably better to just not have one.
An alternative way to think about it is this... is it a good business decision to de-prioritize talking to people who don't have a website? I'd be real surprised if the answer was yes.
This is an uncompelling piece. I believe the core argument is that you should have a personal website a) because the author was unsettled by his own lack of an online presence and b) a side benefit is that he has somewhere to use tech that is interesting to him but not something he can do at work. There's also an offhand comment buried in there about writing practice being good, and an audience making it easier to stick to.
There's not even a real attempt to turn this into a persuasive piece - it's like it started as a post "why I like having a personal website" and then got a new title and intro paragraph. I'd like to see an attempt to explain why the two major points apply to "everyone" - or perhaps the first one wasn't even intended to be an argument, just background?
There's not even a real attempt to turn this into a persuasive piece - it's like it started as a post "why I like having a personal website" and then got a new title and intro paragraph. I'd like to see an attempt to explain why the two major points apply to "everyone" - or perhaps the first one wasn't even intended to be an argument, just background?
Curated online presence > no online presence > bad online presence imho.
That includes personal website and social media.
That includes personal website and social media.
I've been blogging for 7 years using Wordpress (hosted, with my name as the domain name). It's been a great experience, and I wish I had started earlier. I don't feel any pressure to blog every week or every month, but over the years the content has built up anyway. At an interview recently, I was asked several questions (e.g. What makes a great programmer, What are the most important lessons you have learnt) for which I could point to blog posts I had written.
I've written about my experience blogging here: https://henrikwarne.com/2017/11/26/6-years-of-thoughts-on-pr...
I've written about my experience blogging here: https://henrikwarne.com/2017/11/26/6-years-of-thoughts-on-pr...
>“You were a complete ghost online.”, they said
Okay, so what? Is it a blogger or promoter position? Otherwise, why should you have any visible online presence?
The whole thing is about one guy who decided to make a personal website and how he made it, that's fine. But why call it "You should have a personal website" without any reasoning/examples for others? I don't get it.
Okay, so what? Is it a blogger or promoter position? Otherwise, why should you have any visible online presence?
The whole thing is about one guy who decided to make a personal website and how he made it, that's fine. But why call it "You should have a personal website" without any reasoning/examples for others? I don't get it.
What are people’s thoughts on an ideal personal domain name?
firstlast.com seems the obvious choice, but it gets pompous when used for things you’re the author of but not the subject of, like “andrewredford.com/my-js-library” or “andrewredford.com/notepad”.
fml.com (initials), if you can score a good TLD? flast.com? Create an unrelated but brand-able name like vegandev.com?
firstlast.com seems the obvious choice, but it gets pompous when used for things you’re the author of but not the subject of, like “andrewredford.com/my-js-library” or “andrewredford.com/notepad”.
fml.com (initials), if you can score a good TLD? flast.com? Create an unrelated but brand-able name like vegandev.com?
“I like to look people up before an interview to try to get to know them a bit. You were a complete ghost online.”
Why is this a bad thing?
Why is this a bad thing?
Something about this comments page plays the Trogdor the Burninator song (in the premii HN app on Android). I've never had that happen before, anyone else experiencing it?
Agree with the article, it does not cost too much effort and gives you online presence.
I am using gohugo + netlify, tried gatsby, jekyll as well. If you are interested how to setup a personal web-site - I've an article for you: https://medium.com/@tarasmatsyk/how-to-kick-off-a-blog-in-2-...
I am using gohugo + netlify, tried gatsby, jekyll as well. If you are interested how to setup a personal web-site - I've an article for you: https://medium.com/@tarasmatsyk/how-to-kick-off-a-blog-in-2-...
In addition, there should be a search site that only indexes personal web sites.
I started my own online journey as codingbbq which is my alias. I wanted to write articles and have my share of online presence, without connecting to my actual identity. If I wish to look for job or apply to a company, I can always share my website with them. http://codingbbq.github.io
Wonderful article, RSS needs to make a comeback. Especially among friends and family who love to make large posts about important topics. I try to tell them to build a blog and then just link to articles that they write. Your article and others inspired me to finally just put together a system to make it easier to start blogging. I just mimic a social media platform, but since everything is committed to a repository using the JAMstack it could easily be converted to a full website.
Any feedback would be wonderful. https://your-media.netlify.com/post/make-your-own-media/
I will also mention that https://www.stackbit.com/ is doing basically the same thing but more from a “Make life easier for Website designers” perspective.
I will also mention that https://www.stackbit.com/ is doing basically the same thing but more from a “Make life easier for Website designers” perspective.
I’ve been writing on my personal site [0] since 2006. Most of it is bad. The early goal was to rank first for my name on google. That worked until an actor with my same name emerged.
A few of my articles have made it to the front page here on HN. The traffic spike and follow on views from peoples newsletters and twitter is fun to see.
But nothing material has ever come from it.
I still enjoy writing on my site. When I’m in a mood where I write twice a week some of it even gets good. Then there will be periods of months where I stop. I tell myself if there was a consistent audience coming back for more I would write more. But that is undeniably the wrong answer to the personal site chicken-egg problem.
I suppose this thread is now pushing our personal sites.
[0]https://www.nicholasjrobinson.com
A few of my articles have made it to the front page here on HN. The traffic spike and follow on views from peoples newsletters and twitter is fun to see.
But nothing material has ever come from it.
I still enjoy writing on my site. When I’m in a mood where I write twice a week some of it even gets good. Then there will be periods of months where I stop. I tell myself if there was a consistent audience coming back for more I would write more. But that is undeniably the wrong answer to the personal site chicken-egg problem.
I suppose this thread is now pushing our personal sites.
[0]https://www.nicholasjrobinson.com
I don't think it's fair to judge a candidate based on their online presence. Some people are very private, or for whatever reasons prefer not to have an online presence.
Furthermore, if you judge every candidate by the number of linkedin posts and stackoverflow answers or whatever superficial metric than you will miss out on a lot of talented people.
I'm not the type who has an urge to express my opinion or feelings on anything. I've been on Youtube for years and never posted even one comment. Although I always like videos, if I liked them of course.
Furthermore, if you judge every candidate by the number of linkedin posts and stackoverflow answers or whatever superficial metric than you will miss out on a lot of talented people.
I'm not the type who has an urge to express my opinion or feelings on anything. I've been on Youtube for years and never posted even one comment. Although I always like videos, if I liked them of course.
Mark wrote a great article for my newsletter a couple of months ago and I found his passion really showed through. I think a big part of it is that he's put so much work into his own site.
We need more of this! Especially in 2019.
We need more of this! Especially in 2019.
Terrific thread! Am enjoying reading about personal experiences around "building your brand." In fact, I believe this is so important you should fight your instinct to keep things "pure." And go ahead and contract professional services if you are serious. Hire professional developers, writers, graphics, video, and stylists if necessary ;)
For certain folks just coming up this is de rigeur. If you are a young writer / director trying to break into advertising to gain experience before conquering Hollywood. You need a killer demo reel. Same for a recent MFA grad living in Brooklyn seeking Manhattan gallery representation. An Instagram that tells a visual narrative is way more powerful than a series of unconnected shots.
Furthermore, learning to take a single piece of content. Such as an onstage presentation or demo. And slice and dice it into bite sized content tailored to specific platforms. It is one method for extending your reach 10x. It's the "attention arbitrage" in Gary Vee's Content Model ;)
https://www.slideshare.net/vaynerchuk/the-garyvee-content-mo...
And it's why "free tiers" such as Github Pages, App Engine and 1MB are so important in our community. Not only does it level the playing field. It offsets the risks for experimentation and self-discovery.
"Man, sometimes it takes a long time to sound like yourself" --Miles Davis
For certain folks just coming up this is de rigeur. If you are a young writer / director trying to break into advertising to gain experience before conquering Hollywood. You need a killer demo reel. Same for a recent MFA grad living in Brooklyn seeking Manhattan gallery representation. An Instagram that tells a visual narrative is way more powerful than a series of unconnected shots.
Furthermore, learning to take a single piece of content. Such as an onstage presentation or demo. And slice and dice it into bite sized content tailored to specific platforms. It is one method for extending your reach 10x. It's the "attention arbitrage" in Gary Vee's Content Model ;)
https://www.slideshare.net/vaynerchuk/the-garyvee-content-mo...
And it's why "free tiers" such as Github Pages, App Engine and 1MB are so important in our community. Not only does it level the playing field. It offsets the risks for experimentation and self-discovery.
"Man, sometimes it takes a long time to sound like yourself" --Miles Davis
Like everyone, I harbor fantasies about how interesting I am, and if I run into you at the pub, I'll talk your ear off about the places I've been and the things I've done, but if I'm objective about it, none of it is particularly praiseworthy, and it's hardly going to make me stand out to a potential employer. Any attempt to dramatize my life or skills is going to reek of pomposity, even the rare bits that are somewhat unique.
I'm not a designer. I'm not a visual person. Any attempt to fashionably describe myself is going to backfire. My resume is a good overview of my skills and experience, but if I try to turn that into an online portfolio, it's not going to be any more impressive. If I don't keep it up to date, and remodel it constantly to keep up with contemporary fashions, it's going to make me look old and out of touch.
I have an exceedingly common first and last name, so I'm hard for employers to find online. I'm happy about this. I don't want employers scrutinizing my social media presence, as benign as it is. I would never give a potential employer any of my online IDs if they asked.
If you've got something to say or show and you want your own home page, go for it. I don't think most people actually have enough interesting content to warrant it, though, and I'm pretty sure that I don't.