Best Blog site?
 

What would be the best site to geta Blog on? And why?

I think the two most popular blog sites seem to be Xanga and LiveJournal because they offer a bunch of services for free.

I guess they do have their own pluses. If you're not too web savvy, Xanga's the way to go. It's easier to customize your journal there, and you can also add music. With LiveJournal, you can customize your page however you like, but it's more difficult. But--they do offer a bunch of different styles you can choose from to create your page. My page was done with css style codes (that I didn't do, obviously!). I guess Xanga's more user friendly.

I like LiveJournal better because you can make posts public, private (for your eyes only), and friends only. And within those you save as friends, you can also filter posts so that all but say one or two friends to see your posts. To my knowledge Xanga doesn't allow private or friends only postings.

The communities on Xanga are also easier to navigate than Xanga (they have blogrings). But Xanga also offers some storage space for pictures.

Both sites offer premium services for a fee...you get extra storage space and more user icons.

But as far as reliability goes, LJ goes down often (more than GC!). It's not for that long though, as they have people working around the clock to fix minor glitches here and there. To my knowledge, Xanga's only been offline once in the past few months.

I chose LJ mainly because I knew that a lot of my friends were already on it, so it was easier to make posts friends only.

Hope that helps!

I was on Diaryland and I switched to LiveJournal. I like LJ a LOT better. The comments feature is nice, where people can comment on each entry.
It's a bit difficult to figure out how to modify the layout, but they have communities and FAQ about that to help.
I really like the private entry feature on LJ. I use that to save things that I want to transfer between computers, like to save a paper that I've typed on my own computer and need to access at the library to print it. Make it private and no one knows it's there but you!

i started with blogger, but i wasn't impressed.

movable type....but you have to be a bit technically oriented to use it (unless you get someone else to install it).

it has nice features and not a closed off community like other systems.

Isn't movable type the program/language or whatever? I do agree with her though. She and everyone else with movable type has phat blogs.

-Rudey
--PHAT

movable type is the freeware that you have to install on your (own) server.

w0rd to phat blogs.

livejournal is probably the best in my opinion--the most features for the cheapest, and a HUGE community (including me! :))

i'm a faithful xanga blogger, and yes- it does have the "private" function.

i've wanted to get on over to LJ too, but i don't want to leave my xanga hanging because i've been over there for a year and if i got an LJ i'd probably end up keeping both and that wouldn't be good.

LJ bouth by Six Apart
 

LiveJournal has now been bought out by Six Apart (the company that owns & produces Moveable Type [an install on on your own server blog] and TypePad - expensive hosted so-called blog service).

Press release comments say the merger won't affect anything. Watch out for flying pigs.

Alas poor LiveJournal, we knew you well.

I don't think LJ is going to change much -- if anything, it will get better. I could be wrong, but I'm not going to worry about it unless and until something bad happens.

I personally love LJ but I haven't used any of the other journal sites. I signed up for a Greatest Journal a long time ago but didn't use it. Blogspot seems weird because I don't think they have user info pages and friends pages, but I could be wrong. I really like being able to read my friends page.

I have the equivalent of an essay question.

In layman's terms (don't get all technical on me, that is) what is the difference between an LJ and a blog? I thought it was just that "weblog" or "blog" was a generic term and LJ a brand name, but reading about this Six Apart deal gives me the impression that isn't the case.

/sounding like my mom referring to "Snoopy Dogg Dogg"

There really isn't a difference between an LJ and a blog. Some weblogs are topical and discuss current events, while others are more diary-like. But I've seen some LJs that are more "blog like". *shrug*

ETA: The biggest difference I can think of between the two is that the thing that makes LJ so great is the community that builds up around the system. You can find lots of people that share your interests very easily - that's a little difficult to do with self-hosted weblogs.

The technical difference might be the features you'd get with each service, but for someone who doesn't want to mess around with all the technical mumbo jumbo, an LJ would work just fine.

Oh, and I hope Six Apart makes the LJ network more stable, but to do that I fear that all of the free accounts will become a thing of the past. :(

I thought the same thing. I was under the impression that LJ is a place that hosts your blog (IE online journal) But hey what do I know.

I'm building a travel journal web site, and I've recently decided it might be cool to add some blog features (mostly the ability for people to comment on individual entries). Can you recommend any resources where I could learn the ins and outs of moveable type?

Teach Yourself Moveable Type in 24 Hours: http://www.samspublishing.com/title/067232590X

I was/am a LJ user for awhile. I've all but stopped updating that, and moved to blogger. (I will post a link to the new blog every once in awhile to keep my account, because I've got some friends on LJ and I want to be able to post on their journals still, etc.)

The change was spurred by some computer issues, not LJ itself.

I've found blogger to be quicker & easier to update, and more useful. I have a "main" blog - where I'm not identified and can vent, bitch, muse, be creative, etc. I have a personal web page as well, and a separate blog that posts right to the sight with atom capabilities and some iframes. (This is my "mom-safe" & "coworker-safe" blog... and since the site is sort-of professional, that blog stays on topic - music - and pretty boringly professional). Blogger has a partnership with someone that provides free image hosting (I don't use it, so I don't remember who it is...). They have templates, you can modify them if you want, or you can design your own. You can also use FTP to import your blog to a web site.

As for the community aspect - I think this really is a lot of the fun of blogging/LJ'ing/etc. It took me a couple days to figure it out, but with blogger If I click on someones profile, it will pull up a list of interests. If I click on one of those interests - "play-do" - I'll get a whole list of blog users who have play-do as an interest. You can also create team blogs, where multiple users can post to them. If there is one thing I wish blogger had, it's a "friends" feature like LJ.

Overall, I'm really happy with blogger. :)

I started on blogspot.com but moved to msn spaces, which I am currently using.

This is kind of related -- I have a blog on Live Journal and I also have my own website. I think there's a way to export (or whatever the term is) my LJ to my site, or, if there isn't, there's a way to put a blog on my site. Does anyone know how to do this?

Sis,

Wait a while. Now that LJ has been bought by the people who run Moveable Type (blog software) there may be some changes to come that will allow you to export your entries as a text file for importing into MT or some other blog software.

I went traveling and had a journal on my website. Originally I put on movable type and it was working fine, but the features were not easy to customize unless I was at my home computer. I then decided to use wordpress, which was better and easier to manage "on the road."

With movable type, you have to rebuild and re-index all your pages when you want to modify something. With wordpress, it was just a click of a button and plus I liked the ability to send posts by email to my journal.

If you want to stick to an online journal not hosted on your own, I think livejournal does the job. For photo albums, gallery was also a very easy and mobile choice.


RUgreek

I'm a MySpace junkie!

I'm either here, on myspace, or on thefacebook when I'm online

Hey als, here's another old thread getting bumped LOL

I figured that I'd piggyback off of this thread rather than making a new one.

It is now 6 years later and there are more blog clients and people who actually keep a blog, so I was wondering if anyone would like to share their opinions on their favorite sites.

I've used Blogspot/Blogger for the past 3 months, and I decided to look for something that gave me more flexibility and cuteness. So I started a new blog on Tumblr yesterday, which I think is a little too flashy, but its features are nice and it has a lot of convenience.

So I'm looking for a client that is kind of in between Blogger and Tumblr.

Any thoughts/opinions?

It really depends what you're using it for—if it's just a personal blog, I'd recommend a Tumblr. It's super-easy and customizable.

For my clients, I typically put them on a Wordpress or Blogger (it really depends on their industry). I personally like Wordpress—the plugins seem a little more developed and it's simple to integrate the blog into a website.

I have read this thread with interest and was wondering if someone would give me a Blogging101 course overview. (I am 49 years old, so you can see what my problem is!) The concept is really appealing to me, so this is a serious question. Please tell me:

1)Why do people blog? ( I was interested to note that someone recommends it for clients??)

2) Should a person have a special interest before blogging? Is it better to have a mission/purpose to your blog?

3) How do you get people to read your blog (and for that matter, how would I start reading other's blogs?)

Thanks! I think it sounds like something I would like, but it also kind of intimidates me.

1) Some people blog because they like to write. Some are "show and tell" blogs (cooking/photography/crafty things). Some are geared towards a certain community (pets/mothers/homeschoolers/sports). Some people blog because they like to think they're more important than they are! :p ;)

2) You don't have to, there are plenty of blogs out there which are just someone posting about their daily lives. But having a certain angle can definitely help drive site traffic. You have to first figure out what you want your blog to do for you.

3) There are blogging support sites and blogging conferences that are great resources for spreading the word about your blog and finding similar blogs to keep up with.

Some great blogs I read on a daily basis:
www.thepioneerwoman.com
www.bakerella.com (she only posts once a week)
www.pawcurious.com

There are a TON more out there.

Okay! I am kind of excited! Keep this info coming!

So, after the thread info - did we decide to LJ or Blogger?

My husband and I always joke about writing a book that is a his/hers version of our lives - Men interpret things differently than women. For example, he says I had an epidureal during L & D; trust me, I DID not. Maybe this is my creative outlet!!

Nowadays I would say most bloggers use Blogger or Word Press. Blogger is more user-friendly for the first time blogger; Word Press is more customizable.

I just want to add my $0.02 :)

1)Why do people blog? I started blogging because I like to keep logs of things in my life, such as dreams, significant events, etc. I had been doing this for years in notebooks and such, then in January I decided to put it in electronic form. Then it just took off and evolved into my everything space. I vented, posted music, wrote reviews on stuff I recently bought or used, and I realized that it was a good way to review myself, so at the end of every month I go back and read all of the posts, and evaluate myself from there. When my first blog started getting too personal (and I deleted my facebook account) I got a new blog @ Tumblr, which I intend to be less personal but still a way for my peeps to know whats going in my life.

2) Should a person have a special interest before blogging? It all depends on what you want to do. Like I said earlier, mine (and a lot of peoples) blogs are just accounts of their daily lives. If you are trying to generate a lot of traffic and readers for your blog, it might be good for you to have an interest in mind.

Is it better to have a mission/purpose to your blog? It all depends on what you want to do :) People will read it if your posts are interesting and/or informative.

3) How do you get people to read your blog (and for that matter, how would I start reading other's blogs?
When I first started blogging, I had my Blogger based blog set as public, which means that everyone and their mom could read it at their leisure. When it started getting more personal I changed it to invite only, which means that in order for someone to be able to access my blog I had to email them an invite, then they had to register as either a guest or a user. As far as people knowing about it, I talked about it a lot and I had a link to it on my Facebook profile. Right now on my Tumblr blog I have it set to public, and in order to find my friends' blogs I had Tumblr search my email contacts to find people by their emails. I'm pretty sure all blogging clients have some sort of "follow" feature, so once you start following people they will hopefully follow you back :)

update - spent some time on blogspot.com today and loved it! I have found one blog I really enjoyed and even managed to subscribe to it (although I have no idea if I did it right but we'll see).

I think I will write this blog under a psuedonym (does that term apply to computers as well as novels? hope so) in order to protect the innocent, myself included!

This thing has potential to be a major way to waste a lot of my time that could otherwise be spent organizing and cleaning...thank goodness!