Does Wordpress give you the option of following other people's blogs? On Blogger there is a dashboard where you can enter all of the blogs you want to follow, and then when those bloggers publish something new, the title and the first couple of sentences of their new posts appear in a scroll down list that you can see in front of you. Does Wordpress have anything like that? Can you follow blogs from other platforms there?
I'm asking because I know somebody who wants to become a blogger but doesn't know which platform to choose. (Is it even called a platform?)
Also any general thoughts on which blogging platform is the best will be appreciated. (Buying one's own domain is out of the question for this person.)
Thanks!
7 comments:
Yes, it's called a blogging platform.
I'm pretty sure Wordpress allows you to follow other blogs, but I don't know exactly how it works (I use Blogger because it's what I'm most familiar with).
I can only comment on the platform I currently use, and so I will: I like Blogger because it's easy to manage, and I can experiment with html or css without messing up the entire site.
When I was considering this question a few months ago, I found this to be helpful: http://www.thestorysiren.com/2009/02/blog-tip-1.html
Only the top portion is relevant, but that pretty much sums up everything I can say on the topic. It's all personal preference.
You can do that on Wordpress. I started on Wordpress for my latest round of blogging adventures, figuring I'd try something new. I almost immediately switched back to Blogger--as far as I can tell, Wordpress is only flexible when you are using their software, not their free site. I found even the font selections really limiting, for example. So unless you want to host your own site, Blogger is the way to go (in my opinion anyway).
I'd also recommend Blogger if your friend is just starting - easy to use and reliable. I've heard a couple of people complaining that they started using Wordpress because it looked smarter, only later to realize that it was actually too difficult to use for them as beginners - and that they wish they'd known that before they started. Your friend can always move the blog from Blogger to Wordpress later if she/he wants to.
- says the non-expert and happy Blogger user!
/Elisabeth
Thank you, everybody! This really helps.
Clarissa, I'm using WordPress software, with the site hosted on Network Solutions (for a fee, of course). It's very flexible, with the only limit being what I can figure out how to do. I'm not familiar with anything like you mentioned, although there are so many plug-ins available that it's probably possible.
I think what you're really talking about is RSS. You can use it in a variety of ways, to include using MS Outlook. If you're interested, go to my place, click the "RSS Content" button on the nav bar, and you'll see a lot of different ways to subscribe to just about any site.
I am, of course, subscribed to your site. :-)
Thanks, Clarissa!
I tried using RSS subscriptions for a while and found it more troublesome than useful. I prefer to just periodically check back on sites that are interesting (like this one). Maybe I'll try RSS again....
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