Apollo Hosting- Company Blog

Blogs are wildly popular these days, as they provide not only ways for individuals to express themselves, but, in some cases, make some money at the same time. Not all blogs are for money, though. Many are simply expressions of the individual writing them. There are some basic components to any blog, and they are the software, the content, the readers, and, optionally, the methods of monetization. I'll look at each element in a series of posts on blogging in the coming weeks. First up: the software.

Types of Blogging Software

Blogging "software" is generally of 2 types, remote and local. The difference is simply where the blog system is housed, and some might be more appropriate than others.

Beginners may want to seek out remotely hosted blogging services like Blogger.com to start. These services are designed to provide simple online, browser-based administration. Users create an account, log in, and, either write their posts in the browser, or paste in content they wrote in a word processing application. The latter is preferable, as word processing software will provide more proofing tools as well as a way to save a local back-up copy of your blogs.

Some popular remote blogging platforms are:

• Blogger : A service that helped popularized blogging in the first place is now owned by Google and still offers one of the best blogging platforms available.
• MySpace : One of the most popular destinations on the web is, at heart, a blogging platform with significant social networking tools integrated into it.
• LiveJournal : Another popular social networking site is also a blogging platform, where you keep your "journal" and interact with others via friends lists.

Local, or user-hosted blogging clients provide a great deal more flexibility, but may require slightly more advanced web knowledge to effectively operate and customize to the user's liking. These platforms are installed on the users own website hosting plan, and are administered through a web browser. In this they are similar to the remotely hosted services. Local blogging clients allow the greatest degree of customizability and expression on the part of the user.

Popular local blogging clients include:

• Wordpress : A popular blogging platform with a great deal of user support. Wordpress's popularity makes it easy to find themes and addons for it, as well as having a strong support community that is responsive to questions.
• b2Evolution : Similar in scope to Wordpress, it also offers a variety of themes and addons via a dedicated developer community.
• Movable Type : A blogging system from Six Apart that is somewhat unique in offering both free and commercial versions of the software. The commercial version comes with support, giving users a dedicated support system instead of relying completely on the community for support.

These lists are not complete by any stretch of the imagination, merely meant as a starting point for your own investigations. There are many other remote blogging platforms and client software to consider and explore. Many software packages known as "content management systems" also feature blogging components as well.

Perhaps your urge to blog is driven by some favorite bloggers. If so, check out what they use to blog with and see if it a good fit for your own needs. Don't be afriad to try out different packages until you find something that is comfortable. Its likely the most popular bloggers didn't start out using the same platform they are using now. It can be a learning experience, and many common platforms support importing posts from other competing packages.

Next post I'll discuss the "meat" of the blog, the actual content. That is what the readers will keep coming back for, and thus is the most important aspect of a blog.