Creating A Blog

I know this isn't technically one of the topics I'm "supposed" to blog about, but in the spirit of going gung-ho into this lifelong learner thing, I figured I'd go ahead and share my thoughts. I'm a writer by nature anyway, so if I can't write a few hundred words on blogging, that doesn't say much for my talents, does it?

This is the first time I've used Blogger, although I'm very familiar with a few other popular online blogging sites including LiveJournal, GreatestJournal, and WordPress, as well as the embedded blogging software offered by social networking sites like MySpace. I guess since I'm not a first-time blogger, I noticed a few things that I definitely did not like about Blogger as compared to other websites that offer the same service.

Number one, it requires a gmail account, which is just inconvenient. You cannot create a blog without a gmail account, and you can't comment to a blogger blog without a gmail account either. Since I doubt the majority of the world has gmail yet, this can't be convenient, especially if a blog is being created for library use, in which patrons are encouraged to interact. For convenience, any email address should be able to work with the site if you want the greatest ease of use.

Number two, it's got some decent default templates to choose from for layout, but they're kind of boring, and I wouldn't have even realized that you could change the color of your layouts if I hadn't just chosen one at random and then gone to edit it. The widget editing page is equally as mediocre because it isn't evident to an amateur eye that you can shift your spacers and drag the newly-created elements up from the bottom of the page to the sidebar, or that you can rearrange them. Overall, I found it to be fine, if you have a familiarity with blogging software already, but I can see how this website would be very confusing for a first-time user. WordPress is much more userfriendly for blog "newbies." LiveJournal and GreatestJournal are also more user-friendly, but they fall under a more social blogging software category than a professional self-publishing software, although they do function on the Moveable Type platform, which is handy software to be familiar with.

Overall, this was more of an exploration of what else is out there in terms of self-publishing software than a chance to learn something new. The bottom line for me is that Blogger wouldn't be my first choice for a personal or professional blog, but it does the job all right.