22/04/2012

Choosing the right platform for your blog

right platform          Choosing a right platform is very crucial as choosing the right content (because you have to deal with blog hosting, free blogging sites also paid one). There are so many blogging platforms in the net. Some are free and some are paid. Blogging platforms include Blogger, Wordpress, Tumblr, TypePad etc. The question is which one is the best? The answer will vary accordingly. It is difficult to choose one because each blogger will vote their favourite. Off these Blogger and Wordpress are the main rivals. Being a Google product Blogger is easy to use and popular. But the pro bloggers says that Wordpress is more professional. Tumblr and Type Pad have their own pros compared to others.
       My opinion is you chose Blogger first. Use it. Familiarise with blogging then if you need more shift to Wordpress. Tumblr is another choice.
Here is the list of famous blogging platforms
 Blogger _ Free
blogger
                      Blogger is the well-known platform hosted by the web giant Google. Being Google’s product, it is very easy to set up and you can easily publish your first post with in 10 minutes. It is free and tightly integrated with Google’s famous service such as Google search, Google plus, You Tube, Gmail, Google Analytic, AdSense etc. Blogger supports a user friendly editing interface for both publishing and customizing. It include drag and drop template editing, presto templates and gadgets, dynamic updating, geo tagging for location based blogging, easy publication with Google docs, Microsoft word, Windows Live writer etc. Now Blogger allows 'alt text' option, direct publishing to Google Plus, social share buttons such as Google plus, Facebook, Twitter etc. Blogger also supports multiple Editors, multiple blogs under each account functions. And one of the biggest advantages is that it is directly integrated with AdSense. It is easy to set up AdSense account and get approved via Blogger if your Blog pass their terms and conditions. The built in analytical tool provide easy estimation of popularity of your blog. Blogger is ready to go platform which have necessary webmaster tool built in. There is no need to worry about html coding or programming. If you know it will give you more functionality. And Blogger is always updating their tool and interface for users. You will get a new functionality with a shorter time period. Blogger allows easy migration of blog from and to any blogging platform which supports exporting/importing option. You can directly post from your email/phone etc.
Check Blogger new features
 

Wordpress Free

wordpress preview
Picture courtesy Wikipedia
                Wordpress is another well-known blogging platform and is the biggest rival of Blogger.com. Wordpress is an open source platform and is the best choice of most professional bloggers. Wordpress offers two type of set up, you can own blog on your own server (wordpress.org) or directly in wordpress.com. Wordpress is a SEO friendly platform. Because of the biggest amount of communities of followers and developers it have a lot of themes, plugins and gadgets of all stripes. Wordpress relatively hard to setup and configure compared to Blogger and Tumblr. But once you managed to learn how things works it is a great platform. Wordpress allows enormous amount of customization tools and SEO friendly environment which means you will get a blog of high standard.
Check Wordpress features below.

3. Tumblr Free

tumblr
              Tumblr is the fastest growing platform with respect to its rivals. It is relatively very young compared to Blogger and Wordpress. Tumblr is a new generation blogging platform known as micro blogging. It has a perfect combination of Twitter and Blog feed. Tumblr is focussed to the multimedia blogging like picture and video than text blogging. Tumblr has some cool options such as community sharing, like, vote etc. It is also build on a strong community driven system. If you are going to make a tutorial/literature blog Tumblr is not a perfect choice. If you want to promote your product it is a good choice because of its community. Tumblr has changed the way of blogging in to something new as Twitter did.
Check Tumblr features below.

Square Space –paid

squarespace
It is a commercial blogging platform. Square space is very easy and cool platform that doesn’t need a lot of technical experience. A newbie can get a professional blog without wasting too much time. If you are willing to spend some money on blogging Square space is a worthy platform.
Check the latest features
http://www.squarespace.com/tour/

 

 

Posterous –Free

posterous
How you mail? Posting a blog in Posterous is as simple as mailing! You don’t need to set up any account, don’t worry about blog design or coding. Simply send your blog post as email to Posterous. Posterous will create an account according to your email. There is option to edit, update your account directly in Posterous. They also give mobile applications. The site offers a rich media blogging.
Check the latest features below
Posterous
 

Typepad

typepad
One of the emerging platform for blogging. It is very easy to setup and publish. LinkedIn.com offers direct publishing with Typepad.If you wish to setup a blog that boost your career Typepad is the best choice.
 
 

Drupal

drupal
It has a good content management system. Also have some excellent tools for content publishing. It is most suited for organisations who regularly post a wide variety of contents with non-technical writers. As an individual blogger it is not the good choice.
 
There are so many blogging platforms out there.
Compendium,Gawker Bespoke ,Expression engine ,Blogsmith ,Movable type ,Ticker
 
For further reading
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog_software
http://sixrevisions.com/tools/top-free-online-blogging/
http://www.business2community.com/blogging/blogging-platforms-the-good-the-bad-the-awesome-0157467
http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/3083-The-10-Best-Blogging-Platforms-in-2011
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