Not because I want to, for my class on media and society. I have to delve into a mediated experience heretofore unknown. I’ve done social networking, I’m into a particular message board, so all I can really think of to do for this project is blogging.
Note: I have to actively experience it, i.e. keep a blog for the next couple of weeks, as opposed to just reading other people’s blogs.
So I have some questions for you bloggers out there.
What site(s) do you use?
What is your blog about?
Have you had a good response to your blog? (I’d like to have some interaction with other people, because I imagine writing a paper about how I wrote about my life would be fairly boring. Hell, I think writing about my life would be really boring.)
www.blogger.com is the one I used for awhile. The interface is easy to use and you can make a decent looking blog without too much hassle.
As for my own blog? It was about my day to day doings. Yeah, it was extremely boring. I had it up for a few years but then took it down because I never really updated it and no one read it as far as I know.
I just started a blog on blogspot.com. It was really easy to set up (helps that it’s about my dogs and I have loads of pics and stories about them. I haven’t had alot of response yet, because I really haven’t “advertised” it. I am active on a couple of working dog boards, just recently changed my signature to let people know I have one.
I was really tempted to add a Christ Purity Counter (tongue in cheek) but did not think it really went with my theme. I think if you want to get responses, you have to go out of your way to let people know it exist (family, friends, people with the same interests, etc. ). I don’t really aspire to anything great, to me the ultimate blog is thepioneerwoman.com, but I don’t have her talents, great camera and unlimited subject matter.
I’m not a blogger aficionado, but I can say that nobody wants to read about your personal life except friends and family (and maybe not even then). The ones that get views and comments are those that focus on a particular subject, and from what I’ve seen no subject is too niche. Blogs looking at daily stuff like news or comic strips are easy to maintain, and blogs with a large subject like food are also good. Mainly you want a creative, focused approach.
I agree with Bosstone on the need to focus. I used to think I hated blogs because the word connoted a diary gone public, but I love blogs about local dining out and cooking. I’d say pick a subject you enjoy and invest a decent amount of time in anyway and then share your expertise (or at least knowledge) with the rest of us.
I host my own domain, and I use Wordpress. Most of my posts are actually done with a wordpress app on the iphone. I should mention when you view the site , while its wordpress, how it looks is a theme that I downloaded from the themepage directory on wp.
Random thoughts , iphone app reviews , what ever comes to mind
So far lots of spam from russians who cant figure out how to add my site to an rss reader, actually thats just a generated text that they use.
I believe that you can blog on myspace , if you actually want to try your hand at writing one , its like anything else, you blog to your strengths, be that an opinion , tech knowledge , how your weekend goes , are you a bouncer with a need to talk about guidos coming in from jersey , or girlfriends of bankers, its extensive.
What site(s) do you use?
I use Go Daddy for hosting. I use WordPress for my blog software. Rather than go with wordpress.com or some other blog building site, I wanted to be able to get my hands dirty, and I’m quite satisfied.
What is your blog about?
Anything related to reducing the amount of paper in your home. Subjects like scanning to pdf, backups, securely storing personal data and the like.
paperjammed.com
(Post a nice comment somewhere if you don’t mind :))
Have you had a good response to your blog?
Very little up till now, just like Declan, because my blog has only been up for a month.
It’s slow going getting into Google’s index and getting the blog URL out there.
I’m patient, and I am posting 3 or 4 times per week and commenting in similar blogs on the Net. I get those same Russian spammers that Declan gets.
Any other tips or suggestions?
[ul][li]If this is a short-term experiment, just use one of the free blogging sites such as wordpress.com. It’s amazing how easy the tools make things.[/li][li]Otherwise, buy your own domain name (~$10/yr), it looks much better.[/li][li]Post regularly.[/li][li]Keep focused.[/li][li]Pick a topic you are passionate about.[/li][li]The key to getting noticed (e.g. indexed in Google and other places) is to get others to link to you.[/li][li]I like using pictures, so I bought some credits at istockphoto.com and occasionally buy a $1 “very small” picture (all that’s needed) for some subject.[/li][li]In addition, there are some sources of free stock photos available. I take advantage of them as well. For example, why pay for a picture of a hard-drive platter when there are dozens available on free stock photo services.[/li][li]Do some research on the topic—lots of folks have written quick how-to posts on blogging. Some areas of interest: which blogging software to use; managing your blog’s Google exposure; what kinds of plugins and such to use.[/li][/ul]
Good luck!
My blog is really not very interesting. I don’t think anybody reads it. I don’t update it enough. And I tend to forget I have it, as there are probably four or five rants a week I could put there if I really thought about it.
Blogger.com from the beginning. Gives me the right tools I need and allows me to use a personalized URL that I own right now.
I havetwo. The first is a work blog: the second is about my daughter’s diabetes and how we all cope with it.
The diabetes blog is not well read: but my work blog has gotten around.
Find other blogs that share your interests and post to them. Once you get to know the blogger, he or she can blogroll you and you’ll get more traffic that way.