This is from the archived Oh Word. Visit the relaunched Oh Word for the new style.

|

Rather see the above links in your inbox or feed reader?
Subscribe to our Links for hand-picked items from around the web

Oh Word Email Updates

Your email address:



Jan 07, 2008

New Year: Reflections and Reincarnations · by Rafi Kam

OH LA LA

You may have noticed my reduced output these past few months. This has been mostly due to my time being taken by unpaid overtime at my day-job and also by a big freelance programming job.

What kind of freelance job? Well I’ve been commissioned to fix the site OHHLA. Why me? Because I’m the one who publicly skewered it for its problems. And Karma is a bitch.

It’s actually a great project to be working on but I underestimated the difficulty of making a proper database out of the 30,000+ songs that live on the web’s largest hip-hop lyrics site. And I overestimated my available time and that combination has understandably led to some tension between myself and the client.

Lesson learned: in the future, I will not be afraid to outsource my development work when my time is limited (which means always). That’s how I should have gone about the data import portion of this project instead of just putting it off because of its size.

Songs have been imported though, album data generated and still being cleaned up. So there is an end in sight, which will then clear up more time for things like Internets Celebrities and Rog’s Space Rap-stravaganza and a few other projects I have on queue. Oh and my kids…..

Bigger than Hip-Hop

Meanwhile, with all of our time limited and finite, we’ve decided that we’re not making the best use of it with Oh Word as a hip-hop blog. It’s been a fun ride but we yearn to be inspired by our subject matter more than ambivalent about it. There’s a disconnect here. In our own conversations the focus tends to be on the way technological and cultural shifts are profoundly changing our world, then we blog about the more static worlds of hip-hop music and blogging.

Sure, we get into bigger ideas as well but by occupying this niche we’ve hamstrung ourselves as far as what we can talk about and also who will receive the message.

So in a few months we’re going to relaunch the site with a focus on what it means to be a citizen of this new world. We want to encourage our hero: the amateur d.i.y. creative type. This is a great age for dabbling (nullus) in any field and that spirit is what has made Oh Word’s modest success possible in the first place.

Why after a few months of blogging instead of right now? Quite simply, we want to burn some bridges tie up some loose ends. It’s full speed ahead on the Space Rap project which fittingly transforms to become our rocketship off this planet.

We’re all excited about the rebirth of Oh Word and while some of you may be disappointed about the change in focus, we hope that most of you stick around. It is, after all, bigger than hip-hop.

P.S. This isn’t a fake retirement like hip-hop fans are used to. This is more AARP than Jay-Z, more bygones being bygones than being Saigons. We won’t return with the 44 or post on MySpace next month announcing the game needs us. When we’re done, we’re done – it’s a wrap.

Comments for "New Year: Reflections and Reincarnations"

  1. One love.


    — J-Mass    Jan 7, 12:22 PM   

  2. Rafi,

    So those are the changes you hinted at before… sounds great & congrats on not resting on your laurels.

    My SpaceRap contributions are coming as is a post for Oh Word this very evening: hold tight!

    Looking forward to building in the future (unless I’m on the opposite side of one of those bridges…).

    Peace,

    Dan


    — Dan Love    Jan 7, 12:39 PM   

  3. I hope OHHLA is being redone wiki-style. If not, you already lost.


    — P-Matik    Jan 7, 01:03 PM   

  4. 1) Guess I shouldn’t be sad but optimistic – good luck and look forward to the new focus.

    2) NEVER underestimate the time it takes for a data import! Lol. It always takes x times longer than you think.


    — ADB    Jan 7, 01:18 PM   

  5. REDOING OHHLA? That’s insanely ambitious, plus crazy. Much respect due on that, you got balls.


    — Thirtyseven    Jan 7, 02:13 PM   

  6. J-Mass,

    Come through with the Ron G stuff already! You’re running out of time…

    Dan,

    Never that, you’re family! I was pretty much kidding on the bridge-burning anyway – maybe just some extra real talk on the way out.

    P-Matik,

    wiki is not a panacea.

    ADB,

    Thanks and very true on the import. I should know better. Your comment also makes me wonder how many programmers / IT people are in our audience. I suspect the number is x times more than other hip-hop sites.

    Thirtyseven,

    We make the impossible look miraculously, haphazardly attainable. Insanely ambitious plus crazy = worthwhile side project.

    Stay tuned…


    — Rafi    Jan 7, 02:44 PM   

  7. I can’t believe OHHLA is still around.

    Good luck with the relaunch!


    — a-one    Jan 8, 01:08 AM   

  8. definitely makes sense. seems like, with the interest in outside projects, that this would be the natural progression. we gotcha back!


    — khal    Jan 8, 08:48 AM   

  9. Good luck with the transition this year. Ill still be here.

    Much love.


    — Donny Goines    Jan 8, 01:36 PM   

  10. what does this mean for the year end rap up coming out this summer?


    — hamadi    Jan 8, 03:23 PM   

  11. What does this mean for Ohword’s archives? You guys are gonna keep all the entries and articles right??? I was just showing my friend some of the old stuff I had read. Hate to lose that…


    — Spick Rick    Jan 8, 10:13 PM   

  12. Rick,

    Yeah this incarnation of the site will be archived as part of the plan. I couldnt stand to see it vanish either.

    hamadi,

    it doesn’t mean good things… i’ll be posting some thoughts on 07 and on re-capping but we’re skipping the bells and whistles this year. doesn’t make sense to go that route.


    — Rafi    Jan 8, 10:18 PM   

  13. I saw this story on my phone today, too funny, and might work into your upcoming IC video:
    http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSN0959265620080109


    — Jay B    Jan 9, 05:03 PM   

  14. “doesn’t make sense to go that route.”

    Oh, word?


    — hamadi    Jan 10, 10:57 PM   

  15. Re: OHHLA
    I hope fix the ads while you’re at it… I certainly don’t begrudge Flash putting banner ads up and monetizing his site a little… but the way the pop-ups, bright animations and stuff hit you and keep hitting you every time you look at any part of his site… well, it makes me stay away.


    — Werner von Wallenrod    Jan 11, 04:56 AM   

  16. Re: Ohword
    I could tell from your Google Reader that your interests were going in other directions (I now know more about Facebook than my own childhood). You’ve gotta blog where your interests are (for the sake of your own enjoyment and the quality of your work). Best of luck with iot all! =)


    — Werner von Wallenrod    Jan 11, 05:03 AM   

  17. Can’t wait to peep the new and improved…
    Peace/Respect
    J.Marinko


    — Marinko    Jan 11, 10:41 PM   

  18. Rafi and I had many discussions of wikification, including some right here on this website, which should let you all know how I feel on the subject. I do intend for the project to make it easier for people to SUGGEST changes (i.e. you won’t have to manually e-mail them to me line by line) but I’ll still approve or deny changes. That way we won’t have 50 Cent fans maliciously editing The Game’s lyrics or vice versa. If Wikipedia taught me anything it’s that any popular article ends up getting locked due to vandalism sooner or later.


    — DJ Flash    Jan 16, 09:22 PM   

  19. <a href=“http://dk-drugs.com/albenza.html”>buy albenza</a>


    — HsvsRsvsesv    Apr 18, 09:39 PM   

  20. <a href=“http://dk-drugs.com/colchicine.html”>colchicine</a>


    — HsvsRsvsesv    Jun 30, 06:21 PM