Advice Wanted for a Blog Service

[iceberg]

I second the notion of Wordpress. Either using the service or hosting your own. I've set up and hosted several wordpress blogs. I'm happy to provide as much or as little advice / technical assistance as you'd like.

Benefits of hosted: Drop dead simple.

Benefits of hosting your own: Complete and total control. This can be a good and bad thing. But really with Wordpress, once it's up and running, it is nearly thoughtless to maintain. Your day to day activities will revolve around posting your thoughts, not keeping the site up and running.

well it's also cost. if $60 a year isn't a killer then to me it's worth the control.

i prefer joomla myself but wordpress is a fantastic program also.

 

[YosemiteSam]

well it's also cost. if $60 a year isn't a killer then to me it's worth the control.

i prefer joomla myself but wordpress is a fantastic program also.

Yeah, but Joomla (Drupal, and others) are more than just blogging software. You build entire websites with those. It seems Hos just wants a blog. Joomla's more than capable of being a blog, but it's overkill. I've used Blogger and it's simple and very customizable and has some very good tools.

I host my own site (exactly what I'm preaching against here), but my site is more than just a blog, (lately, I've been messing with building it using Django) though I'm about ready to dump the blogging portion and just link / domain map that to blogger.

 

[viman96]

Like Sam I Am, I manage Internet (as well as Intranet) infrastructure for a living. If you are not really tech savy or just do not want to deal with it then go for the hosted service. More than likely they will have some form of redundancy so your blog is always available. If down the line you find that you need more control of the server and or software then you can move the blog to an environment you own or have more control over.

 

[iceberg]

Yeah, but Joomla (Drupal, and others) are more than just blogging software. You build entire websites with those. It seems Hos just wants a blog. Joomla's more than capable of being a blog, but it's overkill. I've used Blogger and it's simple and very customizable and has some very good tools.

I host my own site (exactly what I'm preaching against here), but my site is more than just a blog, (lately, I've been messing with building it using Django) though I'm about ready to dump the blogging portion and just link / domain map that to blogger.

yep on all counts. that's why i recommend wordpress for hos. i just like to do more with it.

rockettheme.com has some excellent skins for this stuff.

 

[CowboyMcCoy]

You make me wish I had your phone number and we had time to talk. This is all great info that is helping me. Thank you.

Go with blogger... it's the best platform for writing, citing sources and adding pictures and videos. You can't go wrong with blogger.

 

[CowboyMcCoy]

Like Sam I Am, I manage Internet (as well as Intranet) infrastructure for a living. If you are not really tech savy or just do not want to deal with it then go for the hosted service. More than likely they will have some form of redundancy so your blog is always available. If down the line you find that you need more control of the server and or software then you can move the blog to an environment you own or have more control over.

Yeah, he kind of missed the party on the blogs though. So many people wanted to write, and they did, and it just sort of died out because nothing really stood out in blog space.

 

[YosemiteSam]

Yeah, he kind of missed the party on the blogs though. So many people wanted to write, and they did, and it just sort of died out because nothing really stood out in blog space.

I find general blogs boring. I follow a blog when the blogger is doing something I'm interested in.

For instance. If someone is in the process of implementing a new technology I'm interested in and does blog posts about the trials and tribulations of doing so. I'm will be reading.

If he is just posting random blog posts about different stuff I won't.

To me, for blogs to make since their content must be very specific. If it's not, they are just another twitter with more characters and filled with mostly useless drivel.

IMO there is no "missing the party". All those people who tried to blog and failed is because they never had anything worthy to blog about. Hos is doing something Cowboys specific. There are a lot of Cowboys fans out there that will probably quite interested in what he has to say. His posts get a lot of attention here. I can't see why his material wouldn't when put up for consumption outside of CBZ wouldn't.

 

[CowboyMcCoy]

I find general blogs boring. I follow a blog when the blogger is doing something I'm interested in.

For instance. If someone is in the process of implementing a new technology I'm interested in and does blog posts about the trials and tribulations of doing so. I'm will be reading.

If he is just posting random blog posts about different stuff I won't.

To me, for blogs to make since their content must be very specific. If it's not, they are just another twitter with more characters and filled with mostly useless drivel.

Indeed.

 

[67CowboysFan]

IF you go with wordpress there are thousands of free themes and plugins for it. It works very well as a cms. If you have an idea what type of look you want let me know. I might already have a theme that matches.

And yes get your own hosting. For the couple bucks a month you know your site will always be online an not banned for some oddball reason at some free host.

 

[TheCount]

I'll recommend Tumblr. It's a great micro-blogging platform - which to say it's great for focused blogging and less so for editorial style blogging.

If you're trying to make something more involved and it's very important to you that you own the content and the social aspect is not as critical, then I'd definitely go Wordpress and my own domain/hosting.

Also, I definitely wouldn't do any of this on Facebook. Facebook's privacy policies are a mess, and it's really not designed for blogging.

 

[YosemiteSam]

No matter which direction you go. (platform, hosted, hosted yourself) The best thing about it is there are free blogging sites out there. You can try all of them and decide which software you like best. Get a free WordPress account and If you like WordPress, but want to put ads up to monetize it. Host your own WordPress site.

Of course, paying for a hosting service will eat part of the income. Definitely research the hosting company. You don't want poor hosting. (slow, overcrowded, down a lot, etc)

 

[viman96]

Yeah, he kind of missed the party on the blogs though. So many people wanted to write, and they did, and it just sort of died out because nothing really stood out in blog space.

True but the same can be said for any web site. If the content is compelling then it will be a success regardless of the type of web site it is.

 

[TheCount]

True but the same can be said for any web site. If the content is compelling then it will be a success regardless of the type of web site it is.

I think there are plenty of blogs out there, some of them are just disguised well.

What crashed and burned is the idea by some that others were interested in reading their senseless ramblings about their boring daily lives.

Content is still king, regardless of format.

 

[viman96]

^ I agree. It can be a very fine line between an online diary and a Blog.

 

[Hostile]

I think there are plenty of blogs out there, some of them are just disguised well.

What crashed and burned is the idea by some that others were interested in reading their senseless ramblings about their boring daily lives.

Content is still king, regardless of format.

Thank you for the vote of confidence.