I'm gonna use a lot of dumbed-down technical jargon, so it's not for the faint hearted or those who have no idea about technology. However, if you wish to join the party, it's downstairs.
Okay okay, no more Charlie Sheen-isms. For a bit.
I was considering the other day what I would do without blogging. Having spoken to my new friend Lewis Wiltshire, Editor of the BBC Sport website, about blogging and e-portfolios, it really is what journalism is based on these days.
So, I thought I'd put this into practice, and ask myself... What is actually available?
Well, for those of you who are eagle-eyed, will know that actually, General Musings of an Idiot is based in four different places...
The first, and most obvious, as you're here, is at our own domain, hosted by GoDaddy but powered by Posterous, which is option number two. It's what I use to post all my ramblings and wonderfully boring posts to get straight onto your screen within seconds. But the only issue is themes, and plug-ins, as this currently isn't possible with Posterous. Due to the lack of ability to change the layout of each theme, and allowing each version to be very unique, it becomes very difficult to stand out from the crowd. I mean, this place was orange for a week, just to see what happened.
Posterous don't give you any available options to add any plug-ins without a very in-depth knowledge of CSS and HTML5. That's coding, to me and you. But it means I can't add a Twitter widget, for example, that sits on the side and scrolls through my laborious 140-character moans. And it means I can't integrate Flash into my front page and have things moving around. Even Windows 98 allowed you to do that. Come on...
But where else are we?! Well, let's go back to where it all started - Blogger. We are in fact, on Blogger right here, and that reaches higher on the Google listings than anything else. This blog began on Blogger, and within a week, we'd moved house and parked the car at Posterous. But at least Blogger gives you the options to make each post look visually interesting, allows you to easily change the background and gives you widgets with no coding. A better package? No chance.
Blogger doesn't allow for easy mobile blogging, or easy media uploading. There are no apps, and for what I want it for, it is very difficult to share content between two blogs, or even two different websites. I Tweet each blog thousands of times to drum up interest and get feedback, but with Blogger that's an impossible task, as it all has to be manual. That's why I moved in the first place...
Which leave us with our last place - WordPress. Now I literally joined WordPress a week ago, just to get a feel for what I would have to do. And already, it is a much better, brighter and more effective package than any other blogging software I've seen. And to be really honest with you, it offers everything I want right now. However, there are plenty of hidden costs to make sure I can have a very similar page to my Posterous-powered page.
I can have widgets, design my own backgrounds, and create gorgeous themes and use different elements and have that for myself. I can do pretty much what I want, when i want to, and know it is all gonna be okay in the end. I can sit and drink tea and just watch the computer do it all itself. That's if I drank tea, of course.
But why should I have to pay for hosting, when I have a domain anyway? Who should I have to pay to remove crappy adverts, or to have a nice theme? It just seems a lot of money to spend on something that is perfectly fine elsewhere.
Posterous give me some great options, and for £8 a year, I have a domain and everything hosted for me. Yes, there are a lot of good things in the pipeline here at GMOAI, and maybe Posterous won't be able to provide for that in the future. But when custom themes arrive, and widgets become more common, then we're up, up and away. And I know that actually, Posterous has the best UI, the best capabilities, and gives me the best options too.
It also has a very cool name.
Taken from General Musings of an Idiot: http://www.gmoai.com
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