MonkeyPong Blog

If you plan to start a blog, one of the most important steps is choosing the right platform. The first thing is to choose between a free, hosted blog or standalone blog.

Free, Hosted Blog or Standalone Blog

Free, hosted blog is the easiest and quickest way to get started. Generally, it is free and you do not have to download any software. The three most popular free, hosted blog platforms are Blogger, Wordpress, Typepad. While Wordpress.org and Moveable Type are the preferred standalone blogging platform.

Although many beginners started off using free, hosted blog for blogging — when blogging becomes more than just a hobby, they are most likely to switch from free, hosted blog to standalone blog with their own domain name and hosting service. This may not always be necessary as Seth Godin has successful blogged using Typepad as his preferred platform.

Pros & Cons

Generally, the pro of having your own standalone blog is that it is flexible to customize any ways you like. The downside is, of course, you have to pay for your domain name and hosting service every year. Some companies do offer unlimited domain hosting at only $9.95/month, so you may want to grab this great offer before it disappears.

Popularity: 40% [?]

Continued from What Is A Blog?, the second part of this topic will further shed some lights on the term "blog".

Types of Blog

There are many types of blog, listed below are the most common types of blogs: -

1. Personal blog
2. Corporate blog
3. Photo blog
4. Video blog or Vlog
5. Travel blog
6. Splog

The types of blog are primarily categorized between Personal blog and Corporate blog.

Personal blog

Personal blog is usually a blog written by an individual or a group of individuals with common interests. Usually a personal blog focuses around a niche, although some blogs may focus on a variety of topics. Individuals generally blog about his/her own life, including one or more of the followings: - the food I have eaten, the places I have traveled to, the daily rants, the movies I have watched, etc. These days, potential employers will usually screen an individual through the Internet, therefore, ranting too much or revealing too much personal information on your personal blog is not a very good idea.

Corporate blog

Blogs are not new to the corporate world. With more than 5% of the Fortune 500 companies blog externally, you can only wonder, does your company have a blog too?

Corporate blog is divided between internal blog (can only be viewed by employees) and external blog (can be viewed by the public).

Internal corporate blog can be useful for internal discussions and sharing of ideas. These days, it functions almost like an Intranet but with the mobility of an Extranet.

External corporate blog is meant for the public eye, therefore, usually involves discussion of general topic, i.e. new product and services launch, company news, press releases and more. Some says the main existence of corporate blog is for branding purpose.

The Official Google Blog is one of the most popular corporate blogs, ranks in Technorati top 50 listing among all blogs worldwide.

View the Corporate Blog List at NewPR Wiki.

Further Resources

The Corporate Blogging Book: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know to Get It Right

Popularity: 40% [?]

What is a Blog?

According to Webster’s New Millennium™ Dictionary of English, a blog is an online diary; a personal chronological log of thoughts published on a Web page; also called Weblog or Web log.

Meanwhile, Wikipedia stated, “A blog (an abridgment of the term web log) is a website, usually maintained by an individual, with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse chronological order. “Blog” can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.”

Check out Wordpress: Introduction to Blogging for a more detailed explanation.

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Though the world most popular free blogging web site, Blogger is owned by Google — there are many areas it lacks behind its major competitor like Wordpress and Typepad. One of them is scheduling drafts to be posted in the future.

Well, now, Blogger.com users can finally schedule drafts to be posted in the future, according to Blogger in Draft.

Check out Blogger in Draft detailed information on how to schedule drafts for Blogger.com

One minor thing is the scheduled posts only work when you’ve logged in to http://draft.blogger.com/.

(Via Blogger in Draft)

Popularity: 37% [?]