Blogging software?

[Dorian]

Can anyone tell me of a good blogging software to use? I hate to use blogger and am just looking for a software program that has some good features and options to play around with.

Thanks.

[Linda Buquet]

Hi Dorian,

Well there's WordPress and there's WordPress, then there's also WordPress!

Can you tell I'm a WordPress fan?
Not sure why you'd want to try anything else.
It's an autoinstall if you have Cpanel, is the industry standard and
has more templates and plug-ins than probably anything out there.

[Chrissie]

I am also very fond of WordPress. It's easy to use and the options are endless. Linda pointed out all the good and obvious reasons to use Wordpress so I can't really say much more

[Teli]

Alright, what's this WordPress thing everyone is talking about?

Just kidding. I have to throw my vote in there for WordPress, but to be fair - there are a number of alternatives. (See this entry for some of them.)

~ Teli

[FFMG]

Originally Posted by Dorian

Can anyone tell me of a good blogging software to use? I hate to use blogger and am just looking for a software program that has some good features and options to play around with.

Thanks.

Wordpress is very good, but I can tell you where not to go, bloghoster.net.
Their support is shocking.
Just in case you where looking for a hosting solution rather than a single blog .

FFMG

[Sire]

Wordpress, especially now that it has auto save and heaps of other features in the latest release.

[peterc]

Originally Posted by Dorian

Can anyone tell me of a good blogging software to use? I hate to use blogger and am just looking for a software program that has some good features and options to play around with.

Hi Dorian et al!

Maybe a silly question from a newbie, but what is wrong with Blogger? I have been using the new blogger for the past 6 weeks (for two separate blogs), and have not had real bad experiences... Sure there are some quircks in the system, the wysiwyg editor needs some tweaking, the templates sometimes behave a bit weird, but nothing that could not be helped...

I heard a lot of good about wordpress, and will have a look at that too.

Is there any post somewhere that compares features from the different available blogging software?

P.

[Teli]

Hi Peter,
The main concern with Blogger, at least for me, is when it boils down to content ownership/search engine rankings. I'd rather have my own domain name get the search engine rankings and not have my content subject to the whims of another.

When you manage your own blog on your own site, you have the ability to back up your data and if you're abiding by the rules of your webhost, you're less likely to have your blog randomly deleted because someone reported it as a splog.

Also, there are some features that Blogger simply does not have such as pages, categories (I hear it does have "labels" now), internal tagging, no support for extension through plugins. Those are a few of things I can think of off the top of my head.

Hope that helps,
~ Teli

[peterc]

Hi Teli and friends!

well, last night, up to 3 am, i have been 'playing' with Wordpress... When so many people recommend it, it should be go, no?
And I was indeed very pleased. It looks good, it feels good. AT LAST a large edit window (youhouououououou!).
And indeed loads of standard features that I like and can be implemented trouble free... I imported my two blogger-blogs trouble free, and away I went (have a problem importing updates from blogger to wordpress but guess support will have that sorted out...

some questions/remarks on what you said:

The main concern with Blogger, at least for me, is when it boils down to content ownership/search engine rankings. I'd rather have my own domain name get the search engine rankings and not have my content subject to the whims of another.

well i think the ranking goes for your blog and not to blogspot.com...
And you can have your own domain name in blogger (maybe you refer to the old blogger)..

When you manage your own blog on your own site, you have the ability to back up your data and if you're abiding by the rules of your webhost, you're less likely to have your blog randomly deleted because someone reported it as a splog.

undoubtedly you have more flexibility and data security then.. However, it is not like they will delete your blog on the first one that randomly hit the 'object' button. And I have to tell you that having a default/non-erasable button 'Flag Blog' is not very meaningful.. how many of those hits are needed before you are blocked..? HOWEVER.. Blogger states that it will have to take a few, and then they decide what action (I guess human intervention). At worse, the blog can be put on 'private' or 'removed from the search engines'. The blogger help file does not say anything about 'being deleted'...

Also, there are some features that Blogger simply does not have such as pages, categories (I hear it does have "labels" now), internal tagging, no support for extension through plugins. Those are a few of things I can think of off the top of my head.

Yep, there is plenty of stuff wordpress has, and again, the 'feel' is much better. it is much much much MUCH more userfriendly. Oh, yes, blogger has categories now.. and you can do the plugins, but you have to copy/paste the data (more difficult, but more flexibility)

Things i miss with Wordpress however, is the flexibility to fully customize my template (I can only do parts of it, with no html in it etc..), and to add html in the text on the side bars (to put my own stuff in there like a clustrmap, a polll,..), and to run ads. (which pay for whatever expenses i have to run the blog e.g. flickr account, etc..)

Anyways, there is no black and white. one thing is for sure, thanks to you and those bragging about wordpress , I went there and gave it a try, and will probably stick to wordpress too! even if it was for a 4th blogsite!
(so you have to ask the friendly folks there for your 5$, as you referred me!!)

I would definitively recommend it to a newcomer too, rated above blogger..

thanks again,

Peter
(before a blogger newbie, now a blogger and wordpress newbie! )

[teneclipse]

Hi, I use blogger and It works great for me, I'm going to start playing around with wordpress though. My main thing with switching blog software is changing my address and losing my growing viewership. Probably it is not worth it at this point. I actually have a wordpress account but have not used it as yet.