Blogging
Submitted by matt on Thu, 08/30/2007 - 9:23pm.
This is somewhat of a survey. Who here is interested in blogging? Do you blog already?
If you already do, and if it's business, networking, or tech related, I'd love to read it. I can also add a link to your blog in our Links area.
If you don't blog (but want to), I will be creating a blog section on door64, and you're welcome to have one your very own (for free, of course). I'm just wondering if there's interest from anyone else besides myself :)
Matt
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I don't blog now, but have been interested in it. I might end up writing my own software for the purpose though.
Write your own software? Out of curiosity, what's missing in the current blog software (e.g. Wordpress) that prompts your to write you own? Or is it for the pure thrill of coding one from the ground up? :)
Matt
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Because I can? Part of the problem with most of the freely available blog software I've seen is I don't necessarily want to learn the language and/or framework they are written in to customize or extend them. And then I'd have to add stuff to my web server to support that, and then learn the code for it as well. It would probably be easier for me in the long run to write something that I am familiar with.
Yes, that's certainly a reason :)
Of course, there's nothing stopping someone from building their own, but I thought most of the open-source blog s/w was written with extensibility in mind. Wordpress has many themes available (good for non-artists like me), and functions for a calendar, statistics tracking, tagging, etc....not to mention login/session management. Seems like it would be easier to reuse their work-to-date and learn their API versus creating something from scratch. Just my humble opinion.
Matt
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It would be easier for sure to pick up someone else's work if I didn't have any base to start from. I've already got a web development framework that I like, and there isn't a blogging system written for it. Not that I wouldn't take a look at the code for some of the other freely available systems and see what I could borrow.
Oh ok, I understand. I didn't catch that you were starting from an existing framework.
Matt
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I'm interested, can I paste some HTML? I think I added you guys to mine...already.
Is there anything with the group the weekend of Oct 4th? I'd like to get a group together for coffee or something. I could post-let me know..
Dayna Marcum
Local Reach, LLC
project 1: www.needtofinda.com
www.localreach.wordpress.com
Yes, sort of. HTML with links will work. See this page for all the HTML tags that are allowed.
As for Oct 4th, nothing is planned at the moment. Will you be in Austin?
Matt
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I have about a dozen blogs on various topics.
The two that are most related to this community are:
AustinCast Podcasts and AustinBlogger Blog.
TourofTexas is a cycling blog that had it's heydey in 2005 when Lance rode to triumph in Paris.
I've found something extremely useful for updating blogs called Blogjet, it's a desktop app that has a better gui interface than Wordpress.
I use Wordpress. Setting up a new blog takes 10 minutes including getting an incredible array of themes and plugins.
I help a lot of people get their blogs up and running, many of these are pro bono if I find someone with a good cause or who has something to barter in exchange.
I'm going to start a blog soon. It will be a video blog mostly with podcasts.
What will your topic(s) be? I've thought about blogging, but I can't imagine anyone really cares what I think about anything in particular. I probably fill the world with enough tripe with various forum posts as it is. :-)
Probably sports and politics, my main interests.
I'm not likely to be competing with you for blog readership then... I'm not really a hard-core sports fan and my political views are probably not very likely to be very popular amongst partisans of either side.
I think the blogosphere is big enough for both of us, what are there now, something like 30 million blogs?
The blogosphere is wide open as long as you don't have aspirations of profits I think. If you do then it shrinks down considerably.
Sure, it's easy to get a blog but monetizing it is a tough go . . .
Yep, it usually ends up being the other way around... it is more like an expensive hobby for a lot of people. And yet another expensive hobby is about the last thing that I need, I can't keep up with the ones I already have.
Wordpress.com is very cheap.
Well, maybe not an expensive hobby anymore... But at any rate I really just need to quit getting involved in more things...
A blog is way better than a static website because of the rss feed built in, built in podcasting support and all the themes and plugins.
I currenlty blog to keep in touch with former co-workers and friends. I've started a discussion in the Tech forum "Blogging for Business" to see what people are doing to market themselves.
Valerie Dennis
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/vcd0826
Blog: http://thinking.ivalerie.com
I do the same. I blog (outside door64) with my friends from college. At this point in our lives, we all have families and kiddos running around, and it's a great way to keep up with each other, even though we live in different parts of the country. We use blogspot, and it integrates nicely with Flickr for posting pics.
I'm not interested in blogging - mostly due to the long-term commitment. There are already so many active blogs to just be a regular contributor to.
On many blogs, I read the comments more than the original author. Even with horribly configured WordPress installations - the community still thrives. The economy-related blogs I frequent are run with horrible software and not technically managed well - but do extremely well from what I see ;) Not to say all do well, but the happy ones seem to not be very well run from the technical side. I often encounter SQL errors once or twice a week, the RSS feeds lag the blogs by 8 hours or more, no way to check new messages, etc, etc.
Biggest point I want to make - there is a lot of good content out there - like door64.com itself! I have found I'm doing just as good being an televangelist / preaching the gospel of open community / community participation / free eduction - than I am writing more content that probably isn't as good as what is already out there.
Spreading the word about good content, often with only a few hundred readers - is important!