Ch. 3: What’s Hot and What’s Not on Blog Services

...If you take the time to browse around the Internet, you’ll see the members of popular blog hosting communities are still rapidly growing. If you’re not yet part of this crowd, you better jump on the bandwagon soon to experience the same fun and excitement….

Although podcasting has definitely surpassed the popularity and usefulness of blogging nowadays, that certainly doesn’t mean blogging is a dying art. Not at all! If you take the time to browse around the Internet, you’ll see the members of popular blog hosting communities are still rapidly growing. If you’re not yet part of this crowd, you better jump on the bandwagon soon to experience the same fun and excitement.

Pressing the Keys at WordPress – http://www.wordpress.com
There are a lot of things to look forward to at WordPress besides the wonderful fact that it’s free to use whether for business or personal purposes. Newbies and advanced users alike will enjoy blogging at WordPress with the many features available for use such as entry previews, blog categories, and blog rolls.

Thumbs-Ups: You can add plug-ins and customize your blog layout. WordPress also provides constant updates for their users.

Thumbs-Down: A bit of software knowledge is, however, required for users to properly install WordPress. If you have enabled commenting in your site, don’t be surprised to find that more than a few spammers are developing a habit of dropping by your site.

Fire up at FeedBurner – http://www.feedburner.com
Do you think your blog is worth broadcasting? If so, you should consider moving from your old blog community to FeedBurner. In this website, they won’t just help you create content, they’ll spread around the word about your blog as well.

Thumbs-Ups: With the standard free package, FeedBurner allows you to set up the configuration for your blog for easy posting and even use an RSS subscription button to automatically update the readers of your blog. The website also lets you know the average number of visits your blog has per day with the FeedBurner hit counter and other traffic statistics. You can earn money on the sideline from blogging at FeedBurner because the website permits you to use Google Ads in your blog.

Thumbs-Down: Unfortunately, the template editing section of FeedBurner is not that easy to master.

Everything in One at Multiply – http://multiply.com
If you wish to blog, upload photos, videos, music files, write reviews, and post your social calendar online in just one website, all you have to do is sign up for an account at Multiply.

Thumbs-Ups: Photo uploading is virtually unlimited, and images can be classified by albums, and given captions. Skin choices are provided to give your blogs more color and life. The URL is pretty easy to memorize – username.multiply.com. Lastly, RSS feeds are allowed.

Thumbs-Down: On writing reviews, Multiply doesn’t give users much freedom on customizing content by font type or color. Layouts can be edited…but only if you have CSS knowledge and even with that, customizing is still somewhat limited. Smiley list is pitifully inadequate.

Live and Write Freely at LiveJournal – http://www.livejournal.com
With a hip nickname such as “LJ”, LiveJournal is a website that’s especially suitable for the fun-loving crowd that’s always on the go.

Thumbs-Ups: Bonds forged online are strengthened by LJ’s email notifications for commenting. Thus, if someone comments in your blog, an email will be sent to inform you about it. Likewise, an email will be sent to you if your comment on someone else’s LJ receives a reply – whether it’s from the blog owner or another blogger doesn’t matter.

Thumbs-Down: LJ however is less easy to customize than other blogs. Some features that are already offered free by other blog hosting sites are on the other hand available only for LJ members with paid accounts.

Be In Vogue at Xanga – http://www.xanga.com
Teenagers seem to be absolutely enamored with Xanga. If you desire a blogging process that’s easy and stylish at the same time, Xanga is definitely the blog hosting site you’re looking for.

Thumbs-Ups: Besides having community-based blogging to look forward to, each post you make will allow you to inform your readers what you’re presently reading, watching, or playing. You can also upload photos, music, and write categorized reviews. A guest book is automatically offered to users.

Thumbs-Downs: Although Xanga allows users to make use of RSS feeds; it would take them some time to properly integrate it in their blogs. The customize layout options is sadly limited, the URL provided for members is a mouthful, and commenting is exclusive for Xanga members only.

So, what do you think? Which blog hosting site do you plan to choose? Wherever you end up blogging, we wish you well! Blog on!

Ch. 2: Website Vs. Blog: Pros and Cons Unveiled Ch. 4: How to Design and Install Blogs

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