Website customisation is the hallmark of web 2.0 generation Internet sites. This is particularly true of social networking sites such as YouTube, Myspace, Twitter etc, all of which allow users to customise profile design with relative ease. Customisation instills a sense of ‘ownership’ and ‘identity’ in the user and helps create a loyal user base. The customisation process varies from site to site. It can be as easy as choosing colours from a chart, but more and more it requires some basic knowledge of html and css coding. I think it is safe to say that the more people learn to customise websites the more they will want to increase their knowledge of web design and branch out into creating their own sites from top to bottom.

It is these circumstances that have given rise to a whole new amateur class of web designers. Take blog template design as a key example. There are countless bloggers now offering design and customisation services as part of their blogging lifestyle. The cost effective ‘pimp-my-blog’ model of web design, which usually involves the customisation of pre-existing templates, has lead to a drop in market prices that would have otherwise been occupied by professional designers; and while allowing the lower end of the market to gain access to custom blog designs, which probably will not lead to blogging glory or getting a place in the so-called ‘A List’, more importantly it has lead to a drop in design standards and a medicocritisation of the web experience in general. The case in point being the recent sponsored themes ‘débâcle’ – a blogger’s mini revolt against the surge in the number of sponsored WordPress themes that have appeared recently.

If we’re to indulge Mullenweg’s mantra for a second, and consider blogging as a cultural pursuit created by a code-savvy few, then what else than a dilution of that form was to be expected when opening it up to the masses with the likes of Blogger and WordPress? The same thing applies to photography. As soon as the technology was ready for cameras to be manufactured in mass quantity and sold at cheap prices, everyone suddenly became a photographer and the term ‘snap-shot’ came of its own. This didn’t necessarily lead to an increase in Cartier-Bressons, Doisneaus and Nachtweys, but it did create fertile ground for the consumption and acceptance of a ubiquitous graphic advertising culture, just as mass blogging has become the stuff of trend-spotting and money-making as opposed to the online diary it once was – and yes this blog is guilty on all accounts.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 18th, 2007 at 9:26 am and is filed under Wordpress. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

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