I’ve had a number of people ask me, “What should I use to make my blog?” and “What’s the best blogging system?”. I’m just going to throw it out there right now, I haven’t tried all of them. I’ve played with a few but not all. I thought I would go through the ones that I have tried and point out their strengths and weaknesses as to maybe help someone pick which service they should subscribe to. Here is a quick summary of what I think of these blogging platforms.
Tumblr
The best way that I can describe Tumblr is the love child of blogging and Twitter. I know that Tumblr can be used for serious blogging but it just seems like a lite version of blogging to me. Tumblr has options to like, reblog and comment on other posts very easily. Along with the dashboard that will show all the blogs you are following, it seems very close to a social networking site. There is a very dedicated community within Tumblr and they sure do love how easy the service is to use.
There are many different templates and colors you can change to make your blog your own, but the customization is definitely limited in comparison to other blogs. The good part about not having as many options is that a Tumblr blog is much easier to set up than other blogs. I would recommend Tumblr to blogging beginners want to post a few things from their life, things they like and reblog others’ content.
You can check out my Tumblr blog as an example of one here: http://DevonSchreiner.tumblr.com.
Blogger
Blogger by Google is one of my favorite blogging services. I think it combines the perfect amount of customization and ease of use for most personal blogs. There are a few extra things you can do with a Blogger blog over Tumblr, like monetize with Google ads, capture stats and some more advanced design options.
I would recommend a Blogger blog to people with a little bit more computer experience that want to get into blogging. Blogger is good for personal blogs and for niche blogs. I don’t think you would want to try to produce a large scale blog or try to sell a product with a Blogger blog, it’s still a little bit small for that. Blogger has professional looking templates and a very easy, in-depth customization control panel.
You can check out my Blogger blog as an example of one here: http://devonschreiner.blogspot.com.
WordPress
If you want a blog that can be custom built to your needs and you have time to play with settings, tools, widgets and plug-ins, WordPress is the way to go. I am also going to point out, there is a difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org. WordPress.com will host a blog for you while WordPress.org is a standalone installation that you need to host yourself. My experience is with WordPress.org and hosting my blogs myself.
I think the beauty of WordPress is the amount of customization that can be done with it. A person can make any kind of website with anything on it while still having such a strong blog backbone to rest it all on. I’ll give you an example of something other than a blog. I recently created a splash website for myself which can be found at DevonSchreiner.com. Thanks to a creative theme from John Saddington, I was able to create a completely non-blog like experience while still using a back end that was familiar to me and very editable.
But for a seasoned blogger, you can’t beat WordPress. With the amount of plug-ins, widgets, themes and other tools you can use, this is the service to choose if you are looking for a high end blog. Also if you want a commercial, multiple user blog, nothing else can beat it.
Not only is this blog made with WordPress but you can check out United Tech Guys as another example here: http://UnitedTechGuys.com.
So what do you think? What’s your favorite blogger service and why? What are must have features that you couldn’t live without?
