Oh god, I'm another blogger wannabe.

May 15, 2011 11:22 AM

Cliche alert: I'm thinking of starting a blog. However, since I don't have a specific theme yet (um, haven't picked something to do for one year that will result in a book contract:)..just kidding), I would prefer to have it only viewed by close friends at first. Is there a way to do this? I'm looking at blogger.com right now to start. I am not very tech, but I have a lot to say!:) so am looking for an outlet (secure at first, to prevent major embarassments if it doesn't work out) with which to do that. Any advice? (Basically I am planning on making a lot of changes this year, wish to document them, and any other random life observations/stories and have all of that readable/viewable by close friends at first and maybe expand from there.) Is this possible?
posted by bquarters to computers & internet (14 answers total)

Wordpress allows you to password-protect just about everything. Make your blog, give your friends one generic password they can all use. Voila.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 11:27 AM on May 15, 2011 [2 favorites]

Nthing Wordpress. What's really cool is that you can password protect some or all of the posts. With Blogger, it's all or nothing. I also find Wordpress to be much more user friendly and the themes are more prefessional looking.
posted by Leezie at 11:28 AM on May 15, 2011

Thank you both so much. Sorry..I really don't know anything apparently! I read a bit earlier and I thought it looked like with wordpress you had to do your own coding/programming? so I got nervous. I will investigate further now. Thank you again, password protection sounds like exactly what I am looking for!
posted by bquarters at 11:35 AM on May 15, 2011

Blogger allows you to make your blog private. Then you invite specific people.
posted by b1tr0t at 11:35 AM on May 15, 2011

It sounds writing private notes through Facebook might actually be a better bet, since you seem to know which specific friends you want to see these at first. If you password protect on WordPress, your friends will have to remember the password to gain access. If you do a private blog on Blogger, only people with Google accounts can view. I started one set of writings as notes on Facebook, saw they got a good reaction from friends, and then converted them into a public blog on Blogger.
posted by msk1985 at 11:40 AM on May 15, 2011

I'm just so leery of facebook though, I mean I use it but...I would just like to do something separately as well. Thank you again, I love metafilter, I really do. Starting on wordpress right now.
posted by bquarters at 11:46 AM on May 15, 2011

You want WordPress.com and not WordPress.org :)
posted by DarlingBri at 12:10 PM on May 15, 2011

You might want to take a look at Livejournal or Dreamwidth (which is based on LJ's source code but is advertising-free and has a couple of nice new features. However, you need an invite code or a paid account). They both have good systems where you can choose to make your posts public, viewable only to a certain list of friends, or completely private. And they require absolutely no technical coding.
posted by Jeanne at 12:17 PM on May 15, 2011

Posterous is supposedly the new hotness, but I can't speak to the privacy settings in actual usage.

They do at least talk a good talk with regards to privacy: "[i]t may be the internet, but it isn't the wild west."
posted by ndfine at 12:22 PM on May 15, 2011 [1 favorite]

COMMENTS thus far seem to address the issue of privacy for your friends to view. I assume you will want to go beyond that fairly soon. Those people I know often began with Blogger because it was easy and free...then if they kept up their blogging, they often moved to other places.

If you believe you have something to say not just to people you know but to a wider unknown world, then give it a try...tweak and fix as needed along the way.
posted by Postroad at 12:53 PM on May 15, 2011

LiveJournal permits you to do this, and you don't have to do any programming. Your friends have to have accounts on LiveJournal, but that's not really much of a problem. You can set your blog to only be visible by your "friends", and you then set each of them as a friend.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 1:09 PM on May 15, 2011

If you're looking to get started up quickly without much fuss, you might also check out Tumblr. It's geared more towards short-form blogging, although there are a lot of people who use it for longer-form writing as well. (This is a good example.) Tumblr lets you create a password-protected blog (see here), and then take the password off later if you decide to make your blog public.
posted by brother at 1:25 PM on May 15, 2011 [1 favorite]

i've been pretty satisfied with my typepad account. it's pretty simple to use. i pay for it, so i can't vouch for the free services, but overall it's been just fine and really easy to use.
posted by lester at 2:27 PM on May 15, 2011 [1 favorite]

If you think you'd like a Dreamwidth (vs a LiveJournal) MeMail me for an invitation. The problem is that your friends would need one (either a Dreamwidth or LiveJournal account) to see those protected entries. So what I think you really want is Wordpress(.com, not .org) and the password protection.
posted by asciident at 7:18 AM on May 18, 2011