I’ve been debating starting an online journal. Which do you use, if you use one. Why? Are there functions of accessability that make one preferable to another? How complicated are they to initially set up ?
Share your experiences regarding owning or visiting them please.
Cartooniverse
I’ve been a blogger / online journal keeper for a while now. I never used LiveJournal though I used other online diary sites when I was first starting.
LiveJournal is a community site. You’re more likely to have people happen across your journal, and it is easy to connect with friends who are also on LJ (as it is called by those in the know…) however when it comes to personalization and control, it is fairly limiting.
I run a personal blog on my own domain. I’ve got a fair bit of web know-how, though these days it isn’t too difficult to setup on your own as a neophyte…
– IG
LJ always looks cluttered and difficult to me, but it’s more community oriented than Blogger. I’m on Blogger, and I have a blog on Wordpress that I haven’t explored thoroughly. If I were starting now, I’d start on Wordpress. It’s more customizable, and the bugs on Blogger are insane.
Yeah, what he said. If you’re new to it, I’d suggest starting with Wordpress; it’s completely free, and it’s easy to customize your template and functions quite a bit. Your URL will be something like http://cartooniverse.wordpress.com. (Blogger, owned by Google, is also popular and free.)
I haven’t used LiveJournal, but from what I’ve seen the pages all tend to look pretty generic. I think (but am not sure) you have to pay for some of LiveJournal’s advanced features, too.
I’d say try one of those, see if you like blogging, and if you decide to stick with it you can later migrate to your own domain or something. Improv Geek (aka my brother) and I both use Wordpress on our domains.
My friends and I have not really found that. You can take the basic templates, and if you know CSS can change things up quite a bit, or if you don’t there are groups that give you templates to use, with images and everything ready to go. You just have to follow the instructions.
You get more ability to play if you pay for it, but even the free ones you can edit up certain templates quite a bit.
I’ve got one of each myself, LJ I use to keep in touch with friends as it’s easier to have conversations on there and I have a few communities I watch. LJ IS definitely more about communicating and keeping in touch with your friends.
A blog is more seperate. Mine doesn’t have the option to reply to comments (except to email people if they leave it) and I’m not sure that I’ve seen one that does, there’s no communities unless you add links or groups like you would a webpage. If people find it, it’s more likely to be through searching for their interests (if your blog is dedicated to your hobby for example).
You’re right you can definitely change it around (with enough know how,) but in comparison between LJ and other blogging apps, the flexibility in looks is still limited. CSS only allows you to change the surface of it, Wordpress let’s you dig deeper into the layout and templating.
– IG
I’ve never played with wordpress (and I’m only so-so at CSS, I use a lot of the walk throughs and play around with them).
Good to know though.
The easiest way to think of it is that in LJ, you can paint the car and maybe use a few body-mods. With Wordpress and other blogging apps, you can change the whole car frame.
CSS just changes the way things look. When you work with the templates in blog tools, you can change what information is display or provided, how it is shown, where it is shown, etc…
– IG
I have a livejournal, and I use wordpress on my blog that I host on my domain. I also have a wordpress.com blog.
I’m all about Wordpress. Livejournal I use mostly if I have a community announcement or have something I want a large amount of people to read. That and Myspace, which I loathe, but it is useful in it’s own way, I suppose.
If I were you, I’d start at wordpress.com. It’s very easy to use.
Or www.mindsay.com.
~Tasha
Here’s my experiences. I started a blog on Blogger years ago, then migrated to my own site.
Both Blogger and Wordpress seem to be the go-to places for a free site. Blogger has had problems, however, with technical problems. Sometimes, it won’t let you login and doesn’t update consistently. It’s an intermittent problem. I would look into Wordpress if i was starting today.
My Web site is run using pmachine’s Expression Engine. It’s a Content Management System, meaning it uses a database to store entries, and templates to display them. The “core” software (which I use) is free, but the personal license ($99) gives you the ability to set up your own Wiki, photo gallery, forum and some other goodies. I’m a self-taught programmer, so there’s big honking holes in my knowledge, but I’ve been able to use the software.
LiveJournal’s not all that different from a blog, except it’s more community organized. This writer talks about using MySpace as a way to promote himself. The tools he uses are unique to MS (and probably LJ), so it gives you some ideas about what is possible.
I’ve seen other people, like copy editors and cartoonists, use LJ as their blogging tool, so even though most of the sites I’ve seen are butt-ugly and extremely bland, I’ll chalk it up to the limitations of the blogger and not the format.
So I guess in the end it depends on what you want to do. If you want to project a professional image and some authority, stay away from LJ and MS. If you just want to kick back and free-associate without worrying about what it all looks like, any of the free sites should meet your needs.
Thank you all, this is great stuff. I’m feeling like my little project while out of town will be to download Wordpress and try it out.
Two questions: Do I download it, or access it and join and do all of my work on their servers.
And, is it 100% Macintosh friendly? If not, I won’t be making use of it.
Cartooniverse
You won’t need to download anything at all if you’re going to start a wordpress.com blog. You’ll log in via a Web interface, just like gmail or blogger or some such. Later, if you want to start your own site, you’ll need to download Wordpress, upload it to your site, and activate it; for now, though, they host the whole thing.
What you’ll probably want to do to start out is go to www.wordpress.com and sign up for a free account. Once you’ve done that, you’ll log into there to post your entries and such.
And yes, it’s entirely Mac-compatible, as long as you’re using Firefox. There are some features, like formatting buttons, that won’t work in Safari. (I don’t know about Opera or IE.)
Enjoy! And remember, if you get stumped on something, search the Wordpress support forum; I’ve always found great information there.
I read this thread and decided to try out Wordpress. I started out this afternoon and had a functioning blog-site-type thing within a few hours. I was pretty happy about that. Of course, I’m a control freak and had to play with everything.
I had a Livejournal once, but I pretty much signed up for it because a friend was on my computer and said “hey, do this” and it didn’t turn into much. I will say that I believe wordpress is a lot better, absolutely.
Brendon
-deep dramatic sigh- This is the week for me to abandon Safari for Firefox too?
What the hell. Change is good. Thanks !! 
I confess I got a geeky warm-fuzzy from reading this.
I’ve had a Mac for a little over a year; at first I was a devoted Safari user, to the extent that for quite a while I hand-coded everything in Wordpress because I was unwilling to switch. Finally I did switch a few months ago, and I don’t regret it a bit. (The rich-text formatting in gmail was another contributing factor.)
Be sure and share your blog URL with us once you get it up and running!
One thing to clarify about WordPress is that you can also host Wordpress on your domain.
Wordpress.com - Centralized hosting where you sign up for an account and they host your blog for free, I believe you can pay for premium service and such.
Wordpress.org - You download Wordpress code and upload it to your own host and then can set it up under your own domain.
Just trying to avoid some confusion.
– IG