Best platform(s) for content creators: What's next?

April 12, 2018 7:04 PM

If you were starting tomorrow to create content (videos, images, articles) on the web, but did not want to create your own website, what platform(s) would you use?
posted by hworth to Technology (5 answers total)

It depends on how much control you want/need, the size and audience, and how much interaction you want and expect from readers.

For most people, a full blown CMS is overkill and simply using Tumblr/Facebook/Dreamwidth/etc. is sufficient (if you're willing to accept being locked into a platform like that) and lets you focus on creating the content rather than managing a website. They also all make a certain amount of reader interaction easy out of the box and make your content reasonably discoverable if your target audience uses their ecosystem.

If your question is specially about using a CMS, I'd probably recommend WordPress as a starting point. You have to do some basic security steps and stay on top of security updates, but it's relatively easy to get up and running and well documented. It's also supported by many hosting providers and if you get in over your head, it's easy to find people that provide consulting for it.

Me personally? I might use Jekyll but I'm nerdy and technical.
posted by Candleman at 9:21 PM on April 12, 2018

Sites like Buzzfeed and others are always looking for content. Use their platform.
posted by theora55 at 9:32 PM on April 12, 2018

Candleman has it I think. A social media or blogging platform appropriate to your audience is the easiest way, a WordPress site probably second (if you let WP host and manage your blog, you won’t need to worry about doing security updates yourself).

My personal nerdy, technical CMS of choice is Wagtail, but you really need to know a little about Python, Django and how they work to get anywhere with it.
posted by Ted Maul at 11:44 PM on April 12, 2018

I hate defending this choice, I have all the requisite experience/credentials/whatever to back it up, and I still feel weird about it, but: Medium, for everything but video.
posted by third word on a random page at 2:04 AM on April 13, 2018

You don't state your budget or your experience, but if you are willing to do the minimum of tweaking you could host a Grav installation. No database to monkey with, all flat files, you can do some amazing things out of the box, customization is fairly easy, and there are decent plugins. No need to build anything, and you can own your own content.
posted by cjorgensen at 6:26 AM on April 13, 2018