01 Sep 2016

Is It Time to Make a Move?

When we first created Yow Yow! back in very late 2008, I didn’t have a lot of options for platforms at the time. There was Blogger and then there was WordPress. I had a 50/50 chance of hating or loving whatever I chose so with Kevin’s recommendation, I picked WordPress. Not many people know this about me, but I grew up using technology at a very young age and was very heavily influenced by my family. I wasn’t coding by any means (I’m still not to this day if you’re wondering), but I dabbled in some very light html and was creating some pretty janky starter websites while I was still in elementary school using Expage and Geocities (RIP) I never could figure out CSS though and just gave up.

When Xanga and MySpace came around – oh man… the pressure was on to always have the best looking layout out of all of my friends and peers. I was constantly updating things to make sure that I was still on point with the trends and using things that were relevant. So when people tell me that they were very surprised to learn that I made the jump from music to tech in my professional career – well… it’s actually not that much of a surprise because before music, there was only tech for me.

I’ve spent a lot of time this year reflecting on 7 years of Yow Yow! We’ve definitely written way too many posts to give up now so that’s not even an option for me. I really love this blog though. It’s not my life – which we’re okay with, but it’s such a genuine extension of myself and who I am and have grown up to be. I know not everyone agrees with me. Some people have strong feelings towards Yow Yow! and not always positively, but I can respect the opinions of those close to me even if we will disagree.

WordPress has been good to me for so long and I am very grateful to the platform for allowing me to write with ease since I was 19 out of my dorm room, in my university’s library, in Seattle coffee shops, in my studio, and all my various homes. Recently, I had a conversation with my friend Pat about moving away from WordPress and exploring Squarespace.

“Katie, as you grow up – Yow Yow! needs to grow up with you too!”

I mean he’s not wrong… did we really think we could continue using one of WordPress’s free templates forever? It’s time that we make something that is a little bit more us and a little bit more representative of the person I am now instead of the girl I was in college.

*****

So, what does that mean for us? Yow Yow! will be on hiatus soon – within the next month for a little over a month so that I can focus on my other work – you know, the one in which I get paid for 😉 – After this time period, we will begin to migrate things over and we’ll start fresh. By fresh, I mean a new look; the intent is to still keep all of the content in one place. In the meantime, I’ll be spending my extra free time pushing as much content as I can before I’m on the road. It’s not going to be the easiest thing in the world, but I’m looking forward to starting something new with Yow Yow! Ultimately, I think it’s a good move for us.