I am continuing my series 'The 10 Commandments' of blogging, but re-arranging them a bit as I go. In past weeks, we've looked at 'The Name Game' and 'Your True Colors,' but even before you get to those laws you have to make a very important decision. Where will I blog? There are dozens of choices. You can blog on Blogger, Facebook, Myspace, etc. But they're far from equals when it comes to blogging.
I use all of the above sites. Each, of course, has its pros and cons. Blogger is great for writing. Facebook is great for re-connecting. MySpace is great for stalking people. Blogger let's one share. Facebook keeps one updated. MySpace makes one want to kill themself. I think you get my point, MySpace is horrible. It's only redeeming quality, really, is that you can have a song on your page. That's pretty cool, but the negatives far outweigh that pro. Signing-in is often problematic. Ads are plentiful and sleazy. Load time is lengthy. Customized pages look ugly. Etc. MySpace might be helpful for finding a few friends, but don't use it to blog. We're down to two.
Facebook is an awesome site. It is MySpace perfected. It's clean look and ease of use makes it a great place to reconnect and let friends know what you are up to. It's so easy to leave comments and everything is very accessible. But, might I say, it's not really designed to be a blog. It's not for writing. Its 'notes' are a secondary feature, not a priority. Writing isn't what Facebook is about. Some people act as if Blogger and Facebook are in competition, but when I first heard that I was surprised. They are 2 totally different things. Facebook is for finding people. Blogger is for knowing people. Sure, you can find people on Blogger and get to know people on facebook, but in a much more limited sense. I'd encourage, though, all Facebook users to import their blogs into facebook (this is another nice feature of facebook). We're down to one.
What you want, if you want to be a blogger (you may not!) is, well, a blog! And who does blogging better than blogger? Nobody. Blogger/Blogspot is a place to write. It's for people who like to write. Content is king in Blogger Land. If you've got something to say that's more than cliche, Blogger is the place to play.
9 comments:
Thanks for the review, good stuff to know. I must say, however, that your rhyming at the end nearly made me sick from corniness.
i'm a pastor. i'm paid to say at least 1 corny thing a day.
My myspace page is the exception. It is beautiful looking. (the whole myspace system in general does stink.) Hey Matt I've been hearing that virb.com is the answer. It could be facebook plus music. Critics say it is the best thing going but getting people to switch is the key. It's the ICQ vs MSN thing all over. ICQ was always superior in what it offered but everyone was on msn so there was no point in staying with it. It has only been in the last couple pgrades that msn has caught up to where ICQ was 7 years ago. Stupid consumers.
Nice plug for Facebook...I'm a late starter with that, as I was with Blogger. I'm just trying to decide if I REALLY do want to re-connect with people from the past...? Still TBD.
Wow you said blogger nine times in that .... Blog!
Blogger's definitely the best blogging tool of all the ones you mentioned, but those aren't really the only choices. Actually there are better choices than Blogger too, I think, but they're not as free or easy to use for the general blogging world. I'm actually considering WordPress or PixelPost for SkitZo MaN dot CoM, one reason being the auto-posting feature, which I'm not sure why Blogger hasn't added yet (maybe to avoid even more spam blogs).
yeah, I did admit there are dozens of other options. And I don't even doubt that they are superior in quality in various ways. My reason for selecting these 3 sites to analyze is simply numbers. These seem to be the most popular. Almost anytime I visit a typepad or wordpress or whatever, there are no comments to be found. I want to reside in the blogger land with the most population :)
Can we get your take on Xanga?
yeah, i've had a few people ask me why i didn't comment on the multitude of other platforms. the main reason is i don't have enough experience at some of them to truly judge.
that's not really the case with xanga. I didn't commment on xanga just b/c not a lot of my friends use it. of the xanga pages i do frequent, i find them to be very bright. perhaps too bright. often hard to read b/c the text and background are similar colors. I find xanga's look a lot like myspace pages except a tad more organized. the advertisements are quite large too.
If i remember correctly, you can only link, on your sidebar, to other xanga sites, which is annoying to me. but maybe they've changed that since I last used xanga. i never really posted i xanga but i did create an account so i could comment on some friends sites.
what do you think of it?
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