So, I want to start my own blog... What next?

benbradley

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A couple of short things from me: an advantage to Blogspot specifically is that so many others (at least on AbsoluteWrite, anyway) use it, and it's easy to log in to make comments on others' blogs - the comment then has a link to your "ID" which is your blog site.

You can do that using your own website/blog, but you have to manually add your URL when commenting on other blogs and such.
 

MitchJ

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I started with Blogger. It's easy to set up and get going, and it's easy to maintain--particularly if you have an iGoogle account. It also automatically pings search engines for blog searches.

Then I moved to my own site, using Wordpress. It's not too difficult to set up, but harder than an established Blogging site. But it's infinitely more flexible. You can add dozens of plugins (yes Blogger has some too, I believe), completely customize the look-and-feel, and you have storage limited only by your host, which may be a lot more than Blogger. But you also have to ping search engines manually. I use pingoat.com for that. It's not hard to use at all.

here's the link if you want to check it out: http://talesfromthecellar.silentgraywolf.com/

EDIT: You can also set up a customized domain. I plan to do that if I get enough traffic.

-Mitch
 

veinglory

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I use blogger but have the blog show at my own domain. That allows the blog to blend with my site but I can use all the tools and the interface.
 

nancy sv

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Thanks for the info!! We'll play with it all and see how it goes. I do think we will get quite a bit of traffic once our next trip starts, so want to have it up and running and the kinks worked out in advance. right now, we are getting next to no traffic, so it doesn't matter at all!
 

Snowberry

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I use blogger but have the blog show at my own domain. That allows the blog to blend with my site but I can use all the tools and the interface.

How do you redirect a blogger site to show at your own domain? (Sorry if this is a dumb question, I'm not the most technically minded person.)
 

plnelson

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I've seen people do their blogs both ways - as part of their own website, and on larger sites like blogspot. What are the advantages/disadvantages of each??

I do all my blogging from my own sites - peterography.com and music4peter.com.

The advantages, for me, are:

- I get my own domain(s)
- I have complete control
- I can more easily add other content with fewer limits on bandwidth or what software I can have on the server. For example, if I want to embed Flash or aspx content of my own, I can.
 

plnelson

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A couple of short things from me: an advantage to Blogspot specifically is that so many others (at least on AbsoluteWrite, anyway) use it, and it's easy to log in to make comments on others' blogs - the comment then has a link to your "ID" which is your blog site.

You can do that using your own website/blog, but you have to manually add your URL when commenting on other blogs and such.

A huge DISadvantage of Blogspot is that it forces visitors who want to comment to set up an account on a 3rd-party, e.g., Google. I don't want to have to set up an account on Google, have YET ANOTHER password to remember, etc, just to comment on a blog!
 

MitchJ

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A huge DISadvantage of Blogspot is that it forces visitors who want to comment to set up an account on a 3rd-party, e.g., Google. I don't want to have to set up an account on Google, have YET ANOTHER password to remember, etc, just to comment on a blog!

I thought you could post anonymously. I already have an account, so it was never an issue. But, that does suck.
 

jerrywaxler

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I use my own hosted wordpress

Thjis was one of the most difficult choices for me, because you have to get it right the first time. As soon as you start getting visitors, you will want to keep them, and that means not moving around.

So my original trials were very squeamish. I wasn't sure if I was going to stay, but that's okay because in the beginning I was still dabbling and finding my voice. I experimented with blogger, and typepad. Then I tried wordpress.com. For some reason I just enjoyed the interface. That was fortunate because the interface on wordpress.com is very similar to the wordpress interface you can host yourself. After reading lots of books, I decided there was so much more power to be had by hosting your own. So I switched to my own hosted wordpress blog. I'm sure I lost some of my original visitors, but I figure now I'm settled down.

It's technically harder than letting someone else host for you, but supposedly the learning will pay off in the long run.

I hope this helps.

Jerry
 

Ghost Bear

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I've used Blogger, livejournal and Xanga. Of the three, I like Xanga the best. The free version is very customizable and they now allow anonymous posting (though if you want to link to your own blogsite, you have to do it manually using HTML coding) - however, you don't have to register through a 3rd party to do it.

I've used Xanga for nearly 2 years now, and livejournal for over 3. I end up cross-posting on both Xa and LJ, simply because I have a 'following' on both sites. Plus, I really like Xa's photo hosting size, which allows me to image link whenever I want to as I post on forums.

My Xa link is in my sig.
 

plnelson

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I thought you could post anonymously. I already have an account, so it was never an issue. But, that does suck.

Maybe it depends on the blog - the two that I've tried to post comments to both required me to log in with a Google ID.

I don't accept anonymous comments on my blogs either, but there are better ways than requiring an account to achieve this.
 

Leva

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Maybe it depends on the blog - the two that I've tried to post comments to both required me to log in with a Google ID.

I don't accept anonymous comments on my blogs either, but there are better ways than requiring an account to achieve this.

At least with Google, the login you user for Blogger would be the same one you use for Gmail, for Google Analytics, for Adsense, for Adwords, for Google Groups, and for anything else Google has, and may come up with in the future. Google is efficient like that.

To answer the original OP's question -- I personally think that there's a nice point in between "having your own site" and "blogging on a huge site." My goal with Firefox News is to have several dozen bloggers covering related topics (SF fandom interests) -- power in numbers and all that.

-- Leva
 

plnelson

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At least with Google, the login you user for Blogger would be the same one you use for Gmail, for Google Analytics, for Adsense, for Adwords, for Google Groups, and for anything else Google has, and may come up with in the future. Google is efficient like that.
I'm not sure I understand your point. It's still an extra login/password to have to try to remember, especially if you have no need for those other services.

And Google is already such a vast corporate monopoly that many people want to have nothing to do with it, so why force your blog-visitors to have to get in bed with Google just to comment? It's as if you required customers at your store to first register with McDonald's before they could do any businesss with you. Sure, maybe they get discounts for Big Mac's and Ronald McDonald merchandise by doing so, but some people would rather have nothing to do with Micky-D's.
 

cool_st_elizabeth

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I blog at my own domain, for the reasons stated by plnelson. I wrote my own blogging system, which permits anonymous comments ... but they don't post automatically. The comments get emailed to me for approval & I post them. This is only a good system for somebody like me, who sits in front of the computer all the time.
 

MitchJ

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I'm not sure I understand your point. It's still an extra login/password to have to try to remember, especially if you have no need for those other services.

And Google is already such a vast corporate monopoly that many people want to have nothing to do with it, so why force your blog-visitors to have to get in bed with Google just to comment? It's as if you required customers at your store to first register with McDonald's before they could do any businesss with you. Sure, maybe they get discounts for Big Mac's and Ronald McDonald merchandise by doing so, but some people would rather have nothing to do with Micky-D's.


Agreed. That's why I went with a private host. Anyone can post. I just have to moderate sometimes.
 

plnelson

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Agreed. That's why I went with a private host. Anyone can post. I just have to moderate sometimes.


Exactly. That's what I do. I use an Akismet plug-in to block outright spam and then I moderate. Even if I used a third-party login I'd still want to moderate, so the login wouldn't reduce my workload, anyway.
 

MitchJ

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I use the Akismet, too, among others. I assume you're using Wordpress. I do, and I love it.
 

veinglory

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If you own your own domain you can have your site show there but typing the location, domain and password into various boxes in the interface. It takes a little doing but I just followed the steps described in help.

Blogger defaults to not allow anonymous commenters, but click one box and that is fixed. If anyone needs help finding the settings send me a PM and I will do my best to help. I just worked it our by trial and error.