If you're looking for a way to get your words to the web, you'll do well to consider a content management system. These allow you to focus on the words, and let software handle the formatting, comments, trackbacks, and so forth. Below are several popular content management systems for blogging:
There are many good content management tools out there. The key, I've found, is to try writing several posts in the ones that look "good" to you and evaluate them along several lines:
Blogger by Google
This is Google's free content management system for blogs.
BlogWare
Blogware is described as Blog Builder Software for Blogs and Blogging.
LiveJournal
LiveJournal is a journaling system suitable for blogging, networking with friends, and more.
Mambo Open Source
This open source content management system is provided by a number of Internet Service Providers and hosting services. This system is available free of charge, but you need some kind of hosting provider like godaddy.com to house the database and programs.
Movable Type
The Movable Type publishing platform is another very popular blogging content management system. As with Mambo, there is an open source (free) version of Movable Type that you can use on an existing host to run your blog. (I'm using it for this site.)
MySpace.com
One of the many blog hosts out there.
TypePad
A powerful, hosted weblogging service.
WordPress
Free blog tool and weblog platform - one of the more-popular ones.
Blog: CMS
This open source content management system bills itself as "the most complete, feature-packed, personal publishing system on the market. It includes state-of-the-art weblog, forum, wiki engine, news aggregator (atom / rss), and photo gallery".
Wikipedia's List of Content Management Systems
This is a rather comprehensive list of free and commercial content management systems.
There are many good content management tools out there. The key, I've found, is to try writing several posts in the ones that look "good" to you and evaluate them along several lines:
These and other questions are best answered by installing or signing up for a service you're looking at and spending time with it.
- Does the tool make it easy to link to other posts?
- Is it easy to upload images and include them in your posts?
- Can you easily format the text the way you want it, with indentation, alignment, bulleted lists, etc.?
- Does it handle trackbacks, so you can see who's talking about your blog?
- Does it offer an RSS feed, to make it easy for people to scan your blog on a regular basis to find articles of interest?
- Are you able to categorize your posts (if you want to) or tag them to help readers find posts on a similar subject matter?
- Can you customize the appearance of the blog to suit you?
- If you want readers to be able to comment on your posts, is that option available?
- Can the system provide Google Sitemaps to help get your posts indexed?
- Can it handle scheduled posts (if you want to be able to write your articles in advance and have them appear on a pre-determined day)?
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