There are a lots of places where one can blog for free. Bryn Mawr, and many other colleges, are hosting blog sites for use by the community. We have a Drupal-based site and a handful of Movable Type blogs. Both of these platforms involved installing software on a server, though end users can sign up for accounts (the BMC blogs site is open to all; the MT sites are for select groups only). If you're interested in blogging elsewhere, however, there are plenty of options. I'm going to cover the three most popular, but a quick Google or Yahoo search will likely uncover several more.
Before choosing a particular platform, think about what you might want to do with your blog. If you want to have a class blog, for example, you might want everyoneto contribute in the same place. You'll need to make sure the platform you choose allows for that. Alternatively, you can let eachperson choose their own platform and set up their own blog. There could be a "mother" blog that links to each individual blog.
Also, you might want to be able to add your own links or photos or whatever to the sidebar of your blog. For that you'll need to be able to edit your template. Some templates are easier to edit than others.
Most hosted blog software these days is pretty flexible and getting more flexible by the minute. Blogger, for example is undergoing a major overhaul, allowing, for example, widgets to be dragged and dropped into a template. No HTML knowledge necessary! You can create an inviting and interesting blog without having to know anything about web design.
Blogger: Create your Blog Now -- FREE
Blogger, now owned by Google, is one of the earliest blogging platforms. It's free to sign up for an account. They have easy-to-use templates, allow commenting, and also allow editing of your template (so you can add cool bells and whistles). They also allow more than one person to contribute to a single blog.Like most blog software, writing a blog post is easy. All you have to do is click the create new post button and a text box you can type in appears. In most browsers, you also get a formatting bar, including an "insert link" button that makes it easy to format and add links to other sites within your post.
As blogger migrates to a new system, features are a bit in flux, but the basics remain the same. Here's a great post on the features of the new system and of course, Blogger has its own documentation. I have several blogs under the old system and have not yet been invited to migrate, so I'm less familiar with the new. I have set up a new account on the new system, but I have only poked around at it.
One of the downsides to Blogger in its current state (and it seems not too much has changed in the new state) is that a lot of typical blog features are not included and you have to use third-party plugins. For example, site statistics are included in many blog software platforms. You can see how many visitors you've had, where they've come from and how long they've hung out at your site among many other things. Blogger doesn't include those. So you have to look around for something and know how to embed it in your template (though many services will do this for you automagically), which can be painful. They have added labels (or categories), so that visitors can surf your blog by topic.
TypePad is another great platform. TypePad, however, costs money. It's only $4.95/month at the basic level. I know many people who are happy users of TypePad. A paid service may not be a good option for a class, but for your personal use . . .
Like Blogger, it's very easy to set up a TypePad account. They offer many different template styles and layouts. They also have all kinds of widgets you can add to your template. The widgets allow you to embed content from other sites, such as del.icio.us and flickr. So if you store links at del.icio.us and photos at flickr, you can easily add them to your site. Lots of stuff to play with there.
Unless you purchase a pro account, you can't customize the template's design. Add widgets and change the layout, yes. Play with the HTML or CSS, no. But if the acronym game isn't your thing, this may not be a deal-breaker. Besides you can add links and gadgets to your heart's content without messing around under the hood.
WordPress › Free Blog Tool and Weblog Platform
Finally, another free option. WordPress offers a hosted option (at wordpress.com) or an installable version (which Tim Burke at Swarthmore uses). I have a blog hosted at WordPress. It offers many different options, including multiple templates, group blogging, categories, and site statistics. I find the templates for WordPress to be very clean and professional-looking. And they can be edited. You can also add widgets to your template.
WordPress offers comment moderation (as do Blogger and TypePad) and statistics. The statistics are more limited than many third-party systems, but still useful. All-in-all, it's a nice platform. It's easy to use and offers enough customization to make most people happy.
My best advice is to just try some of these out for a couple of days and see how you like them. Play with the features. See how easy they are to use. See if they fit your needs. If none of these suit you, look for another option. And feel free to ask for help!
technorati tags:blogging, wordpress, typepad, blogger, education
--ryanj
Great Posting.
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