_Blogging Directory
_
Any blog needs a tool to create and manage the entries and generated pages. Some of the more popular blog tools and services are:
blogger: Blogger was one of the very first blogging services and remains, perhaps, the most popular. Its popularity results not simply from its longevity, but also from the fact that it offers a web-based interface for creating writing, and managing your blog. Moreover, although you can have Blogger publish to your own website or server space, it also offers hosting for your blog at blogspot.com and, even more alluring, it does all of this for free. A number of default templates are available when creating your blog, but Blogger also allows users to fully alter all templates so that blogs can match the design of sites as a whole. Both Blogger and Blogspot offer premium services for a small additional fee. If you want to try blogging, this is a great place to start.
livejournal: This is another free service, sort of. Although the "journals" in LiveJournal are free, you need to have an account creation code. There are two ways to get such a code: first, from an existing LiveJournal user and, second, to pay. In other words, the service is free if you know someone using the service. However, one advantage of this system is that the journals tend to be interlinked into a kind of online community. LiveJournal also has a number of built in "accessories" that allow users to supplement content through things like "mood icons" and "current music" entries.
diaryland: Another hosted service like LiveJournal (or Blogger with Blogspot hosting). Diaryland is a free service and offers many of the same options you'd find with Blogger or LiveJournal, the most fundamental of which is the ability to manage your blog through a web interface. The service is also true to its name: like a real diary, you can protect your blog with password protection, so that you can determine who (if anyone) can read it.
grey matter: Greymatter is an extremely robust piece of web-based scripted software. It's written in Perl, a computer language used to run programs through on the web through CGI (common gateway interface). Although it takes some knowledge of installing and configuring CGI scripts, it has enormous flexibility in terms of look and functionality. Not only does it automatically generate all entry pages, but it also handles all archiving of older pages and it includes a built in commenting feature which will even email you every time someone adds a comment to your blog.
movable type: Movable Type, like Greymatter, is web-based blog software, also written in Perl. Unlike Greymatter, however, Movable Type has the ability to store entries in a mySQL database. Otherwise, Movable Type mas much the same power and flexibility of Greymatter, with many of the same advanced features, such as a built-in search engine. Movable Type has the added ability to import blogs from other services such as Blogger. However, it does require some knowledge of script installation and configuration.
blogcomp: BlogComp is a tool that allows you to compare the feature of up to five different blog tools or services at once. It covers a number of possible features and has explanations of what these features are in addition to noting whether or not the feature is included in a selected blog tool. This service is down for the moment - the website says they will re-launch soon?!
Blog Tutorials
If you feel like you might need some help in creating your blog, there are a number of tutorials available. Many of these focus on Blogger, which reflects its popularity:
blogging 101: This is a tutorial actually created by a student of mine in a web authoring class. It focuses on Blogger and has numerous graphics that lead you through the process of creating a blog step-by-step. It also has a number of links to sites about blogging and to blog accessories.
blogger: getting started: Blogger's guide to creating a blog with their service. Not as detailed or as helpful as Blogging 101.
blogplates: tutorials: Offers links to tutorials for Blogger as well as to the installation guides for Greymatter and Movable Type. It also has links to installing templates for all these services as well as links to various forums for more support.
livejournal faq: LiveJournal's guide to getting started with their service.
Blog Accessories
Bloggers are, by nature, expressive people.
imood: Imood is a clever little service that replicates the mood icons of LiveJournal for other blogs or any webpage. You create an account and log into imood and then set your mood. It then generates the HTML code you need to include your mood on your website or blog. The disadvantage of this service is that you need to go to imood to change your mood while with LiveJournal you set your mood in your journal; however, imood also has an interesting advantage. It uses the collected moods of its users to determine the mood of the internet. As of this writing, the internet is feeling tired.
weather pixie: A web service that fetches your local weather info to generate an avatar-like graphic for your blog. You can select from several stock graphics of people (covering many different genders, races, and styles of dress) and then the clothes on the graphic adjust to reflect your current weather conditions.
blogger code: Blogger code follows in the footsteps of the geek code and the bear code (for hairy gay men into hairy gay men) by generating a nearly incomprehensible code that details you as a blogger. Typical blogger code looks like: B7 d++ t+ k- s- u- f i o++ x+ e+ l c.
blogamp: This is a plug-in for the popular MP3 player Winamp. BlogAmp works from within Winamp to publish the songs that have been playing to your blog or website.
blogback: BlogBack is a hosted commenting service, meaning that users can add comments to a blog maintained by a service such as Blogger and those comments are stored by BlogBack. However, currently it is no longer accepting new users because of the enormous demand for this service.
blogkomm: BlogKomm is a commenting script written in PHP, a computer language (like Perl) that was created with the web in mind. Since it is a script, it takes some knowledge of script installation and configuration to use.
enetation: This is a service similar to BlogBack, offering hosted commenting for blogs. The service is free and appears to be relatively easy to set-up and use.
mozblog: MozBlog is an offshoot of the open source development project, Mozilla. Mozilla was started by Netscape and is a community-driven effort to create a web browser with open code that anyone can view and help develop. MozBlog allows you to blog while surfing the web with the Mozilla browser.
bloggerbot: BloggerBot is similar to MozBlog in that it allows remote posting of blogs. In this case, it allows you to blog from AOL's Instant Messaging program, AIM.
google: blog hosts: Most blog services such as Blogger and LiveJournal offer hosting; however, Google has a lengthy list of sites that offer hosting for blogs.
bloglet: Bloglet is a syndication service. Your blog visitors can register to receive your blogs via email.
blogtree: BlogTree is an interesting and ambitious project that allows users to create a genealogy of weblogs by designating parent, child, and sibling blogs. If someone starts a blog because of your own blog, they become a child blog. If more than one person starts a blog because of your own blog, those child blogs are related to each other as siblings.
blogchalking: BlogChalking is another fascinating project. It's related to the development of warchalking, which took the idea of the visual, ephemeral language used by hobos to map out free wireless networking. BlogChalking is a an effort to map the virtual space of blogs just as warchalking maps the real space of networks and hobo language mapped locations of danger and survival.
bloghop: BlogHop is a blog rating service. After inserting the BlogHop code into your blog, visitors can rate the quality of your blog and its entries.
yaccs: YACCS is another free commenting service for blogs that don't have commenting built-in.
zonkboard: ZonkBoard is a free "blabber board." This service is similar to commenting in that it allows visitors to leave messages on your page and allows you to respond. However, these messages are not related to any one specific blog entry.
blogskins.com: BlogSkins.com is a collection of templates you can use for your blog. In order to use a skin, you download it and then install it manually in your blog service, which may require at least a passing familiarity with HTML.
Any blog needs a tool to create and manage the entries and generated pages. Some of the more popular blog tools and services are:
blogger: Blogger was one of the very first blogging services and remains, perhaps, the most popular. Its popularity results not simply from its longevity, but also from the fact that it offers a web-based interface for creating writing, and managing your blog. Moreover, although you can have Blogger publish to your own website or server space, it also offers hosting for your blog at blogspot.com and, even more alluring, it does all of this for free. A number of default templates are available when creating your blog, but Blogger also allows users to fully alter all templates so that blogs can match the design of sites as a whole. Both Blogger and Blogspot offer premium services for a small additional fee. If you want to try blogging, this is a great place to start.
livejournal: This is another free service, sort of. Although the "journals" in LiveJournal are free, you need to have an account creation code. There are two ways to get such a code: first, from an existing LiveJournal user and, second, to pay. In other words, the service is free if you know someone using the service. However, one advantage of this system is that the journals tend to be interlinked into a kind of online community. LiveJournal also has a number of built in "accessories" that allow users to supplement content through things like "mood icons" and "current music" entries.
diaryland: Another hosted service like LiveJournal (or Blogger with Blogspot hosting). Diaryland is a free service and offers many of the same options you'd find with Blogger or LiveJournal, the most fundamental of which is the ability to manage your blog through a web interface. The service is also true to its name: like a real diary, you can protect your blog with password protection, so that you can determine who (if anyone) can read it.
grey matter: Greymatter is an extremely robust piece of web-based scripted software. It's written in Perl, a computer language used to run programs through on the web through CGI (common gateway interface). Although it takes some knowledge of installing and configuring CGI scripts, it has enormous flexibility in terms of look and functionality. Not only does it automatically generate all entry pages, but it also handles all archiving of older pages and it includes a built in commenting feature which will even email you every time someone adds a comment to your blog.
movable type: Movable Type, like Greymatter, is web-based blog software, also written in Perl. Unlike Greymatter, however, Movable Type has the ability to store entries in a mySQL database. Otherwise, Movable Type mas much the same power and flexibility of Greymatter, with many of the same advanced features, such as a built-in search engine. Movable Type has the added ability to import blogs from other services such as Blogger. However, it does require some knowledge of script installation and configuration.
blogcomp: BlogComp is a tool that allows you to compare the feature of up to five different blog tools or services at once. It covers a number of possible features and has explanations of what these features are in addition to noting whether or not the feature is included in a selected blog tool. This service is down for the moment - the website says they will re-launch soon?!
Blog Tutorials
If you feel like you might need some help in creating your blog, there are a number of tutorials available. Many of these focus on Blogger, which reflects its popularity:
blogging 101: This is a tutorial actually created by a student of mine in a web authoring class. It focuses on Blogger and has numerous graphics that lead you through the process of creating a blog step-by-step. It also has a number of links to sites about blogging and to blog accessories.
blogger: getting started: Blogger's guide to creating a blog with their service. Not as detailed or as helpful as Blogging 101.
blogplates: tutorials: Offers links to tutorials for Blogger as well as to the installation guides for Greymatter and Movable Type. It also has links to installing templates for all these services as well as links to various forums for more support.
livejournal faq: LiveJournal's guide to getting started with their service.
Blog Accessories
Bloggers are, by nature, expressive people.
imood: Imood is a clever little service that replicates the mood icons of LiveJournal for other blogs or any webpage. You create an account and log into imood and then set your mood. It then generates the HTML code you need to include your mood on your website or blog. The disadvantage of this service is that you need to go to imood to change your mood while with LiveJournal you set your mood in your journal; however, imood also has an interesting advantage. It uses the collected moods of its users to determine the mood of the internet. As of this writing, the internet is feeling tired.
weather pixie: A web service that fetches your local weather info to generate an avatar-like graphic for your blog. You can select from several stock graphics of people (covering many different genders, races, and styles of dress) and then the clothes on the graphic adjust to reflect your current weather conditions.
blogger code: Blogger code follows in the footsteps of the geek code and the bear code (for hairy gay men into hairy gay men) by generating a nearly incomprehensible code that details you as a blogger. Typical blogger code looks like: B7 d++ t+ k- s- u- f i o++ x+ e+ l c.
blogamp: This is a plug-in for the popular MP3 player Winamp. BlogAmp works from within Winamp to publish the songs that have been playing to your blog or website.
blogback: BlogBack is a hosted commenting service, meaning that users can add comments to a blog maintained by a service such as Blogger and those comments are stored by BlogBack. However, currently it is no longer accepting new users because of the enormous demand for this service.
blogkomm: BlogKomm is a commenting script written in PHP, a computer language (like Perl) that was created with the web in mind. Since it is a script, it takes some knowledge of script installation and configuration to use.
enetation: This is a service similar to BlogBack, offering hosted commenting for blogs. The service is free and appears to be relatively easy to set-up and use.
mozblog: MozBlog is an offshoot of the open source development project, Mozilla. Mozilla was started by Netscape and is a community-driven effort to create a web browser with open code that anyone can view and help develop. MozBlog allows you to blog while surfing the web with the Mozilla browser.
bloggerbot: BloggerBot is similar to MozBlog in that it allows remote posting of blogs. In this case, it allows you to blog from AOL's Instant Messaging program, AIM.
google: blog hosts: Most blog services such as Blogger and LiveJournal offer hosting; however, Google has a lengthy list of sites that offer hosting for blogs.
bloglet: Bloglet is a syndication service. Your blog visitors can register to receive your blogs via email.
blogtree: BlogTree is an interesting and ambitious project that allows users to create a genealogy of weblogs by designating parent, child, and sibling blogs. If someone starts a blog because of your own blog, they become a child blog. If more than one person starts a blog because of your own blog, those child blogs are related to each other as siblings.
blogchalking: BlogChalking is another fascinating project. It's related to the development of warchalking, which took the idea of the visual, ephemeral language used by hobos to map out free wireless networking. BlogChalking is a an effort to map the virtual space of blogs just as warchalking maps the real space of networks and hobo language mapped locations of danger and survival.
bloghop: BlogHop is a blog rating service. After inserting the BlogHop code into your blog, visitors can rate the quality of your blog and its entries.
yaccs: YACCS is another free commenting service for blogs that don't have commenting built-in.
zonkboard: ZonkBoard is a free "blabber board." This service is similar to commenting in that it allows visitors to leave messages on your page and allows you to respond. However, these messages are not related to any one specific blog entry.
blogskins.com: BlogSkins.com is a collection of templates you can use for your blog. In order to use a skin, you download it and then install it manually in your blog service, which may require at least a passing familiarity with HTML.
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last update 14th february 2012
