My First Post on Medium

Introduction: It has been over 4 years since I last managed a blog. My previous ad revenue of US$88 has been stuck for a long time. Recently, I discovered that I could actively request to cancel my Adsense account, and as long as I reach the minimum payout threshold, Google will send me the final payment; this has motivated me to return to blogging.

Posted Oct 6, 2018 Updated Aug 5, 2023

By ZhgChgLi

5 min read

My First Post on Medium

ℹ️ℹ️ℹ️ The following content is translated by OpenAI.

Click here to view the original Chinese version. | 點此查看本文中文版

Starting is Always the Hardest Part

It has been over 4 years since I last managed a blog. My previous ad revenue of US$88 has been stuck for a long time. Recently, I discovered that I could actively request to cancel my Adsense account, and as long as I reach the minimum payout threshold, Google will send me the final payment; this has motivated me to return to blogging.

As a newcomer, I’ll start with the simple title “Starting is Always the Hardest Part.”

Looking back at my blogging history, it began during my middle school years when I was obsessed with games. At that time, my family’s computer was quite poor, and there weren’t many games to play. However, even without games, I would still open the computer every day, which felt fresh and exciting for me back then.

Due to these factors, most of my computer time was spent chatting with classmates on instant messaging and browsing websites. As you can imagine, it was quite empty and lacked a sense of achievement (at least others playing games could feel a sense of accomplishment).

During that time, “blogs” were very popular, and it was something new for me. The first platform I encountered was the once-popular Wretch. When I created my account and opened my blog for the first time, I felt, “Wow! I have my own website,” and “Wow! I can change the style, how cool!” Coincidentally, my school’s computer class taught web design (Front-Page 2003/ 阿聖網站), so my first blog was focused on exploring its features; I searched for materials, played with styles, and installed many flashy JavaScript plugins, while the content quality was mostly just filler.

This experience gave me a deeper understanding of the online world, such as: how to find information, how to fix broken plugins, how to embed images, etc.

Many of the resources I found were from forums, which were also thriving at that time. However, I was a typical lurker, just reading without posting, occasionally commenting, “Thank you for your generous sharing.” While browsing various forums, I discovered the concept of “free forums,” where you could apply to be the administrator and have your own forum. This felt like a step up from blogging; being a “forum admin” was so cool!

With the foundation I built from playing around with blog settings, forums offered even more customizable options (board creation/member permissions/plugin centers). Everything could be set up by myself, as if I had entered another world.

There were many free forum systems available; I kept switching and trying different ones. Some had incomplete features, some were restrictive, some were unstable, and some had too many intrusive ads. Eventually, I found Marlito, which best met my needs, and I managed it for the longest time.

At the same time, my blog moved to “優仕網部落格.” The reason was that Wretch started imposing various restrictions, while 優仕網 was just starting out, had fewer limitations, and offered features that met my needs. This time, I focused on the content of my articles, with 70% sharing useful programs (similar to 阿榮福利味) and the remaining 30% sharing my experiences with the forum (settings/bug fixes).

I wrote about 30 articles, with daily views of around 200 people, peaking at 500 (which seems insignificant now). My blog ranked in the top 10 on 優仕網, with most traffic coming from articles sharing useful programs. After seriously managing it for over a year, I encountered a busy academic schedule in my third year of middle school and then high school, leading to an on-and-off writing pattern. Later, I participated in training for competitors, and my blog was left unattended.

Since the blog name was too cringy, I only included a screenshot of the view count.

Later, I created another Blogger account to document technical articles about problems I encountered while programming and their solutions. However, Blogger was not user-friendly, and its basic features were insufficient, so I gave up after writing a few posts.

In the later stages, I applied for my own domain and purchased hosting to set up a WordPress blog, but I had to handle everything myself—settings, adjustments, functionalities… I couldn’t focus on writing content, and it ended up being sporadic. When the hosting expired, I didn’t renew it, and the website went offline until now.

In summary, my journey has gone from finding blogging fresh—> to exploring and mastering blog features—> to focusing on the essence of blogging—> to sharing technical articles.

I became lazy, recorded less of the process, and failed to reflect and share. After tasting the sweetness of ad revenue, I gradually drifted further away from my original intention, which was simply to share with everyone.

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https://www.flickr.com/photos/zuvonne/3738631215