Naked Nudism: The Web and Nudism, Part 1

http://nakednudism.blogspot.com/2006/12/web-and-nudism-part-1.html

Some really good, thought-provoking ideas about us, as nudists and naturists, promoting our lifestyle on the Internet . . . if for no other reason than to take back the web (and the Google-search listings) from porn sites. A short except:

The problem is that as the web grew... the nudist web didn't. Many of those same sites I discovered 10 years ago are still around, but haven't been updated in years - they're mired with broken links and graphics. Some resorts have among the ugliest, most useless sites on the planet, if they have web pages at all. There are few to none that take advantage of all the tools that are available today: Maps, blogging, RSS, calendaring. Heck - a decent utilization of email remains a rarity. While the number of nudists must number in the millions, there are a grand total of perhaps six nudist blogs, including my own (The exact number is hard to get at, as there are several which simply don't get updated).

Google delivers search results based on a number of factors, the most prominent of which is link-love. Sites with a lot of other sites linking to them get ranked higher than sites with few. Resources like AANR, TNS, resort and club pages aren't present in the top 10 Google sites because there aren't enough other sites out there saying "Look at this great nudist site: AANR". Instead we have sites like BeBareToo, which simply sell nudist porn.

The dangerous consequence of this is that people like me, open to nudism, may never find out about nudism if those first Google searches turn up junk. The nudist community needs to be much more involved on the web if we want to change that; we need to make sure that information about ourselves and our lifestyle is plentiful and easy to find wherever someone might be looking.

I agree with this blog post. The legitimate nudist and naturist organizaions shy from using the Web 2.0 tools of the online world and thus we fail to make outreach to the very generation that might be amenable to our wholesome lifestyle. As the author notes, we also relagate ourselves to backseat while the porn and sex peddlers claim 'ownership' rights to the very words that define nudism and naturism. We are buried in the search engine listings.

Like many, at first I was reticent about starting a naturist blog but I've been doing it for several years now and it has become fun to post about my adventures, about items of nudist interest . . . to use all those great Web 2.0 tools like RSS, blogs, forums, AJAX-enabled widgets, etc. to deliver what I believe is current, appropriate and relevant content. I've taken the attitude that since I enjoy being nude in many places in the physical world, why not share that love in the cyber-world.

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