Following up on the previous post, I am wondering how long digital content should be stored online.
First, I think it would make sense if a lot of the trivial content on the web was automatically deleted over time. Things like Twitter and Facebook posts, is there any reason this information should be kept for all eternity? These things strike me as very transitory, and they should be treated as such. The only reason companies keep this data around is probably to monetize the content.
Second, I am wondering how to apply this concept to the blog. One method would be to put an expiration date on blog posts – say, after a post is a year old, it should be deleted.
But I’m not sure about this method because that’s not the way the human memory works. Important memories are maintained while trivial information fades, and time is only one factor in this. For example, a person may vividly remember an event from a year ago, but not remember much about driving to work the other week.
So, is there any way to somehow keep the good (valuable) blog posts, and then let the rest decay (expire)? What I’m not sure of is who makes the judgment of a post being valuable.
For example, the blog author could go through posts and weed out lesser posts according to his or her judgment. This would be an occasional, spring-cleaning type of effort.
Alternatively, a blog author could keep the more popular posts as measured by hits (one measure of value to the audience) and then delete the less popular posts.
I’m really not sure about any of this, so I will open it up to any comments that others may have.