Which blogging platform should I use?

May 2, 2010 8:15 PM

Which blogging platform should I use?

I am an occasional and casual blogger. Can't even call myself a blogger, actually - I did a travel blog on a trip to Italy, did a Mac blog a couple years ago, use Tumblr and Posterous to post photos from my iphone. I "share" items on google reader for my wife to see, and post lots of stuff on Facebook. My stuff on Flickr and Yelp autopost on Flickr. My delicious posts and diggs don't show up anywhere else except delicious and digg.

I've decided I want to have all these various posts consolidated into one blog somehow. I want it to be searchable and long lasting so I can look back at posts from years ago.

I am not doing this for any revenue, so ads are not an issue. I will use the blog for link posts, photos, occasional travel notes, etc. All random stuff that only my family and friends would be interested in.

So which blogging platform should I use?

- Tumblr and Posterous are attractive because I like the clean, modern designs. They each have autopost features, and I think there's probably a way to auto import stuff like delicious, digg, yelp, etc?
- Blogger is owned by Google, so I believe it'll be around for years. Not crazy about the template designs.
- Wordpress seems too complicated since I don't want to do html or css programing.

Thanks for any advice.

posted by kdern to Computers & Internet (7 answers total)

blogger recently came out with a more customizable blog template. the designs are eons better than the ones that they initially offered.

that said, i've customized blogs for many people using the minima template (blogger's default template) as a base. because it's so blank, it's the perfect flexible foundation for building a blog with a range of looks. if you intend on including a lot of pictures in your blog posts, I would recommend widening minima's narrow content area, which you can easily do by modifying a few lines of css. it's not difficult at all. this website has some useful instructions when taking the first steps towards customizing the minima template: http://www.squidoo.com/customize_blogger

good luck~
posted by joyeuxamelie at 8:23 PM on May 2, 2010 [4 favorites]

I've decided I want to have all these various posts consolidated into one blog somehow.

I would use WordPress. You can use a plug-in that will aggregate all of your existing blogs into one place. It will import all previous posts and collect all future posts. There are several plug-ins that do this for WP.
posted by jardinier at 8:28 PM on May 2, 2010

-Wordpress seems too complicated since I don't want to do html or css programing.

You don't have to have any knowledge of html or css to use wordpress.
posted by special-k at 9:19 PM on May 2, 2010 [2 favorites]

I've been using Tumblr for a while now (mine) but it's really meant for microblogging and all the features they've added seem to have been pried from the creators' cold, minimalist hands. So I think it's out if you want to do slightly more sophisticated collection of disparate sources. Wordpress (which I use professionally) is very powerful but I get the feeling it would be too much stuff - there really is a lot going on there.

So I'd go with blogger, and one of their newer templates, which you can easily customize I'm sure, or bribe a web developer friend with dinner to make a few style changes to. It'd be worth it to spend a day or two looking at Tumblr, though, because I'm sure it's not going anywhere either (or if it does it's getting bought by Google or someone), and because it's also orientated towards mobile posting. I've been perfectly happy with it but as you see my site is pretty simple.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 9:24 PM on May 2, 2010

If you're not interested in HTML, CSS or programming, you could give WordPress.com, which is significantly more low-key than running your own WP installation, a go. Playing around with themes + widgets should get you what you want.
posted by rebekah at 10:09 PM on May 2, 2010

I know virtually no HTML or CSS and I do fine with Wordpress, and I'm sure you could find plugins to import the stuff that you want. It is really very easy, even on your own domain.

But honestly, I'd recommend Tumblr for what you're doing. It is very easy to use, and one thing it does is automatically import RSS feeds (under "Services" in the blog setup area).
posted by SoftRain at 2:10 AM on May 3, 2010

I recommend you to use Wordpress, it is not complicated - you don't need to know html and php. And if you in any future moment want more from your blog, you'll easily add new features by simply installing plugins. Definitely Wordpress.
posted by Linert at 5:55 AM on May 25, 2010