Blogspot?

[fangirl_says]

Hey, does anyone here use Blogspot extensively? I have one here, though obviously I haven't used it much so far. I'm toying with the idea of using it as a public, fandom-only blog, but I'm not familiar enough with it to have any clue how to best use it. I mean, without flists, how do people know you have posted? How do they read you? It annoys me when I'm completely clueless. *grumps* I did just realize that Semagic would allow me to cross-post to Blogspot, which would simplify the posting part.

Anyway, I'm not planning to stop posting here (or IJ or JF or...you get the picture) or anything; I'll continue posting most fandom stuff publically and most personal stuff flocked (except when I'm an idiot who FORGETS TO LOCK THE PERSONAL STUFF ARGH.)

Comments

[kimyoo-films.livejournal.com]

I use blogspot: http://kimyoo-films.blogspot.com, but I have no idea how many people read it.

There's no friend's list, but you can add feeds to the side of your blog. I have several blogs fed to mine, but most of my friends are still on LJ so I still read, and respond, here. You can also set up a feed for the posts you make on Blogspot so that they can be picked up by anyone.

There's a thing called a blogroll, but I don't know what that's all about or how that works. If I want more people to read my blog, I guess it's something I should look into...but I inevitably either lose interest or completely forget about stuff like that.

[kimyoo-films.livejournal.com]

Semagic can work with Blogspot, but you can't use it with Blogspot AND LiveJournal, by the looks of it. I barely post to LJ anymore, but I don't want to lose the ability to through Semagic so I've been posting to my Blogspot via e-mail.

The formatting's better with Outlook Express, if you can believe it, than with Gmail, but it's hard to embed photos or video. I have to go back and edit posts to do that, and add tags. Just something to consider.

[fangirlsays.livejournal.com]

Ooh...somehow, I didn't realize you could post to blogspot via email. But OE's formatting works better? Huh. That's kinda weird. *g*

[fangirlsays.livejournal.com]

I really do need to learn how to set up and use feeds. See, I think part of my reason for wanting to branch out off of LJ and its clones is that I don't /need/ to know how to do any of that to use LJ; I think it's making me lazy about learning other stuff.

I haven't heard of a blogroll; I'll have to check into that, too.

[aeb.livejournal.com]

I haven't looked into this specifically, but when I run across a "blogroll," it appears to be a list of links in the sidebar.

I suspect getting beyond them means getting into feed-readers. {smile}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

[captainsblog.livejournal.com]

I have a blogger account also, but mainly to leave comments in other peoples'. I find it more cumbersome than LJ, for both readers and writers, but my biggest concern with them is it being part of the Google empire. Those servers know enough about me as it is without starting to store information about what I write, who visits me, etc etc.

/paranoid

[fangirlsays.livejournal.com]

LJ really is much easier, and it's more conducive to a dialog between a blog owner and commenters. And you're definitely right about the Google empire -- the conspiracy theorist in me gets ooged out by monopolies by default. But man, they've got great products. I use gmail and google docs and a few other things now. It sorta seems inevitable.

[wizardresden.livejournal.com]

I used to use blogspot a lot, but I find that LJ is a much better blogging platform, probably my favorite of all the non-hosted ones I've used. If I host my own, I usually use Wordpress simply due to its overwhelming support.

[brianrubin.livejournal.com]

Someday I'll get the hang of this multi-user malarkey.

[fangirlsays.livejournal.com]

*petspetspets* Not to worry, sweetie.

I agree LJ is the easiest journal to use -- it's far more user-friendly and conducive to communication between the blog writer and commenters than other blogs are. I just feel the need to branch out a little, I guess.

[brianrubin.livejournal.com]

The best thing to do then, IMO, is to get your own domain and host it yourself. You have a lot more control over the blog that way and a much stronger online presence.

[onecheekyhobbit.livejournal.com]

I have one, but I'm not so good with it... but I'll help you fix yours up if you would like.. if you need a header or anything.

If all else I can link to you. :)

My blog is, onecheekyhobbit.blogspot.com

[fangirlsays.livejournal.com]

OOOOOH! Oh, man, that would be so awesome! Will I need to use a particular template to have a header, or will I be able to insert one into any template?

Thanks so much for offering to help me! *hugs*

[onecheekyhobbit.livejournal.com]

I'm using Minima Black for mine... I've not looked at it in a long time, but if you give me some high res images and some idea of what you want it to look like, I'll start crackin' away... and if you want, we could try to tag team the set up... make a fake password for me to use then you can change it back when all is done, but that's later in the game.
K

[mrstinkles.livejournal.com]

I've never been able to get to Blogspot from work. I don't think it's one of the websites "we" blocked (like youtube and e-bay), but maybe it is. (BTW, I've been able to get to photoBucket even tho' that's supposed to be blocked, too.)

My "real" blog is by WordPress, but it's not as comment-friendly as LJ.

But if you want to keep up to date with what friends are posting, I think you have to use RSS feeds. And since those require a modicum of effort on my part, I'm pretty bad about keeping up with them.

[fangirlsays.livejournal.com]

Oh! I'm so jealous you can get to photobucket! I still can't. *sulks*

I tell you, all the different blogging sites out there confuse the crap out of me. And I totally get what you mean about RSS feeds. I never have gotten the hang of them. I mean, LJ is so convenient and easy -- click on friends page and voila! -- you're reading your friends' entries. Plus, there's the fact that most of fandom seems to have taken up residenc here.

[helens78]

I read any and all Blogspot blogs I follow through Google Reader -- except for one that was invite-only, which I had to read at the site, and I'd just check that one every few days. I check Google Reader as religiously as I check LJ. :)

[fangirlsays.livejournal.com]

Google Reader really intimidates me, though I'm not sure why. *facepalms*

[aeb.livejournal.com]

I kind of stumbled into Google Reader myself. {pause}

I don't know much about it, but I haven't managed to mess it up yet. I think that says it's fairly simple. Messing things up is my usual method of finding out how different features work, so it must be pretty unbreakable. {Smile}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

[aeb.livejournal.com]

One nice thing about Google Reader is that it's not limited to Blogspot. I've got a few blogs from unrelated services on there, and I didn't need a friend with a paid account to arrange for feeds like I do here on LJ. {smile}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

[fangirlsays.livejournal.com]

Ah! And I even read your most recent post there, and it didn't sink in that that's blogspot. *facepalms* This is how clueless I am outside the realm of LJ and LJ-clones.

[aeb.livejournal.com]

Mine is here: http://aeb-anne.blogspot.com/ . I don't think I've mentioned it much; mainly when I first set it up. {smile}

Would you mind if I added you to my links-list there? {Smile}

Anne Elizabeth Baldwin

[almond-tiger.livejournal.com]

I have one:

http://jbrubacher.blogspot.com

It's my "uhhhhh professional?" blog. :) The people that I know read it use the rss feed or just bookmark it.

[cruel-illusion.livejournal.com]

I have a blogspot thing, but have never posted to it and don't quite get it anyway. Lol, if you figure it out, could you explain it to me? I've been considering using one to publicly post about what it's like teaching and such in a New Orleans Recovery School District.

[lila-blue-b.livejournal.com]

I have a blogspot blog here, which I use all the time... and so does my Latin prof here for all her classes and former students to post things on, and I post there constantly too. I use a blogroll on the side of my page to keep track of the people whose blogs I want to keep track of. Basically, I just check them every now and then to see if anything new has been posted and catch up. I don't use feeds because I've never been able to figure them out (although, I've also never really tried).

Recently, blogger has added a feature where you can click a box when you comment and have subsequent comments e-mailed to you, so you know if other people respond to your comments (before, you'd have to remember where you had commented and navigate back to it to see if people responded). In a lot of ways, blogger takes more work than lj ('cause you don't have a f-page to keep everyone's posts nice and organized, but the volume there tends to be less), and is much more public, but I still really like the format...