Want to start a blog?

How do you start blogging if you're no super tech nerd person? Well, if you want to start a blog of your own, here are a few suggestions. I won't go into any minute detail or review the different kinds of software. I'll just mention a few possibilities, and you can take it from there.

First, there's the free-of-charge options:

Blogger. Blogger is completely free and offers a small variety of design templates for you to choose from. The interface is fairly easy to use, and the help pages are absolutely state of the art, full of hints and tips for personalizing and tweaking your blog. Easy to use and probably covers most needs. However, there's some drawbacks. If you want to upload photos, the best way is to use Flickr or similar free photo hosting services. And tweaking the design can be a bit of a challenge, I've heard.

Livejournal. Six Apart (the company that also owns Typepad and Movable Type) recently bought Livejournal, which is also completely free of charge. I haven't tried it, but the Livejournal blogs I've seen don't impress me much.

Microsoft spaces. Microsoft has been offering their spaces blogging tool for quite some time now. I did a blog for my son about 4 months ago, but stopped using it right away. The design options are too limited, the feel is too Microsoft and the whole thing just didn't appeal to me. Too little freedom and too much "we wanna do blogging software too"! However, spaces does offer free space for photos (I don't remember how many MBs), it is easy to use, and it is integrated with Microsoft Messenger 7.0, which is quite a fun feature. If any of your MSN buddies have a spaces blog, a little yellow star will appear beside their buddy icon every time their blog is updated.

Another option, if you are just a little more tech minded is to download free blogging software and then find someplace to host your blog. The best ones seem to be Movable Type and WordPress. I've thought about giving WordPress a try, but I can't be bothered with finding a hosting service or with moving the blog. Both WordPress and Movable Type seem to be very good applications for blogging. Lots of options, lots of freedom.

As a final option, you can decide to pay for your blog. I subscribe to Typepad, which is basically Movable Type with all the tech stuff done for you, hosting included and a very intuitive, WYSIWYG interface. I absolutely love it and recommend it to anyone who cares to listen! Another option is Squarespace, which I haven't tried. It looks good, though, and is probably (almost) as easy to use as Typepad. Don't know if they have just as excellent service and support, though.

Okay ... there's a few options. Now, get going!

Comments

[Roger]

I've only experienced Blogger and Wordpress. Blogger was OK for a while but reliability (or lack of) was a major issue.

I can certainly vouch for Wordpress - I love it! But, as you say, you do need to sort out your own hosting. For me that was not a problem because I have my own web servers anyway. If you have broadband with a fixed IP address it is even feasible to host it on your home PC. It does also help to know your way around HTML and CSS - but then if you want to play around with your Blogger template you still need to know about HTML and CSS.

Before going with Wordpress I looked at Moveable Type - it has more options than Wordpress, but it looked too complicated to me. I like the simplicity of Wordpress, and you can add features to it using freely available plugins. And there are hundreds of free template styles available.

Another free option as an alternative to Blogger or LiveJournal is Blog City. I haven't tried it but I've come across blogs using it.

[Mimi]

Well I'm a loyal Blogger user. The big thing being that it's free. I just can't justify paying for the few words I type each week. The template issue was a bit of a challenge the first time I wanted to change it. But there are all sorts of free or linkware templates on the net. And most are coded for Blogger. So it is basically cut and paste.

The one (and probably only) time I designed my own template it took me hours and hours. But I had no previous knowledge of HTML or CSS. Again, Blogger's help is great and I found lots of great tutorials on the net as well.

Man, I should get paid for the Blogger advert I just spouted above. lol

[Mari-Ann]

I think Wordpress looked rather nice as well, and the sites I've seen based on it are very nice too. I look very much at usability (of course), and blogging software should, as a minimum, give you the freedom to create eg. categories for your archives. That is one of the only ways to organize your old posts in a way that makes some sense to your readers.

I think that both Blogger and Livejournal suffers from the fact that it is very much based on the concept of journals or diaries. But posts aren't always best organized after date written.

[-w.]

I'm pretty amazed by how Blogger evolved since it has been taken over by Google. Personally, I think it's the best choice for anyone starting out, even more so now than in the past. If I'd re-start blogging I'd certainly do it on Blogger again.

I used to have a Livejournal account, too, but that's a completely different thing, IMO. LJ's much more about community, it mostly (r)evolves around 'friends' and the unique comment function. In fact I got it because I couldn't keep up with chatting in IRC during work anymore (how often can you type 'brb' on a given day, lol). So my friends and I used our LJ accounts mostly to take care of that problem. Unfortunately, while it was fun for a while, our little community soon evaporated.

MT probably has the best design/function options. At one time I actually tried to replace my (ftp'd) Blogger-blog. But my host didn't like MT so I never got around to actually using it. But it was still fun trying :)

[a friend of LJ]

As a person with no techie know-how or interest, I swear by LiveJournal and I don't think you should be so quick to dismiss it.

LJ has tons of interesting and unique features that a smart user can manipulate to advantage. With a paid account ($25/year), you can tweak their templates to your heart's content, or even create your own.

I've never had a problem with spam comments either, which bloggers at other hosts complain about endlessly. As for organizing posts, it's a simple matter to set up a topical index for your LJ. I've done it and it works great.

[Mari-Ann]

Thanks for clearing that up. As I said, I've never tried Livejournal, so I can't really say what's good and what's bad about it.

However, as you say, you may have to be a smart user in order for your blog to get a nice look and feel. Because I've seen some rather horrid attempts.

However, that may also just be a little harsh judgement due to the fact that I work with web usability. I'm not very ... eerhmmm ... tolerant ... when it comes to sites that are messy or difficult to navigate.