The Island Journal

The Island on the Web has been in existence in some form or another since 1994 and has undergone many… MANY incarnations. It has been a site devoted to one person, the works of a few, poetry, art, blogs both video and written, and has served as an expression of one person’s deep seeded need to play and experiment with new technologies and various art forms. After 18 years, the island is going to change again both in name and location. No longer will it be the Island on the Web, a lonely outpost in the midst of the vastness that is the sea of information we call the Internet, but a collaboration and union of ideas.

In the beginning, I coded the Island in simple HTML. There was an all black page with a few black and white images and animated gifs stolen from a dozen sites and it was a true expression of both my innermost thoughts and my web design ineptitude. There were no links within the site, no different pages. It just kind of stretched and continued stretching down one long page.

The second Island was moved from it’s original Angelfire home to Geocities’ Soho. It drifted more into the realm of real websites with interior and external links, multiple pages, and was a haven for design website links and my poetry which, as we all know, was both horrible and cathartic to write. This version lasted quite a while. I would update the graphics pretty regularly and I started storing files there that I didn’t want to loose.

When I left school, the Island fell into disrepair. I didn’t update it, I let the links die, and the information on the page became out of date. It was a couple of years in Limbo before I decided to revive it. I bought a domain, Islandontheweb.net, and revamped the entire site. I picked up flash and animated the entire thing. At first, I was pleased with the turn the Island had taken, but it started to grow stale quickly and I revamped again and again. I turned it into a “Submit your own poetry” site, I held contests, uploaded artwork and photos. I’ve gone minimalist, artsy, intricate, and at times the site was incredibly convoluted.

The most recent incarnation was linked to Boompoet.com, PalmerAttaway.com, and Islandontheweb.com, all of which were redirect links to Islandontheweb.net. I started playing with CSS and redesigned it only three more times before I met Lindsay. At that point… I ignored the Island and began to simply keep up with my Blog which is a small part of the Island’s former glory. I realized, I have Facebook and Google + to keep up with people, Deviant art to keep up with my artwork, Stumble and Digg to keep up with my links of interest, and so on. If I wanted to blog or vlog, I’ve got sites for that too, all of which are interconnected. I came to realize, the era of the personal web site… unless you’re selling something…. is dead.

My wife and I have purchased “Attaway.me” and there you will find the new version of the Island. It’s not really an island now, but more a larger landmass with interconnected websites dotting the landscape like domed utopian cities housed on servers around the web. Lindsay has Lindsay.Attaway.me and I have Palmer.Attaway.me which is the blog site from the old Island on the web. I am only keeping the Island domain as a forwarder for a year. At the end of that year, I will decide to keep the Island domain in the interest of nostalgia, or I’ll let it slide into the swirling mists of nowhere out there on the Internet. I have some time to decide.