I look at a heck of a lot of websites, and one thing that always annoys me is when a webmaster is a bit too forward or aggressive in either asking for donations or paid subscriptions.

Okay, some of these sites are being written by pros: journalists, writers, academics, etc. and they can really write, and they churn out good long form posts day in and day out.  Stuff you normally only get in books or magazines, so I have no problem with them asking that you tip or pay to subscribe.

What I’m talking about are just Joe or Jane bloggers, prodigious or not, got their hand out for money.  I mean some of these blogs don’t have shit for content and they already have a collection plate out.  An About page and two posts is not content, so put the buy me coffee link away.

And I guess I’m not talking about a fairly substantial blogger that has a discreet tip jar, but I am talking about webmasters that have noisy big ads and pop-ups everywhere about paying them something.  And again, it depends upon what you are writing about: tech information you can’t find elsewhere my be well worth a tip or two.

Look, if you are constantly busking for money first that means your site is commercial.  A commercial site is a different standard than a personal homepage.  If you are banging that tin cup it means you better have content well beyond, “I went to Aldi today…”  Honey, I’ve seen many thousands of websites and chances are, yours isn’t that good.

Again, it’s all a matter of degree, if you have to put a tip jar up, be classy about it.

You can have a website without any commercial goal.  Somehow, way to many of us have bought into the ideology that the Web is only about making money, which is complete and utter bunk.  If you are in it for the money, get out of the gray area and go pro.

/rant

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There are some things you should be aware of when choosing a blogging platform:

1. Themes – you may like the theme you are using and use it for years or maybe a decade, but most people are going to want to change themes from time to time.  It’s like redecorating your house.  So beware of a blog host that does not provide themes and changing them.  Eventually you will want to change themes and you’ll regret that you can’t.
2. Comments – I think comments are important to blogging.  You may not.  But the blogging platform should have and easy option to turn comments on or off and some sort of spam control.  A contact form or email comment is not the same as a public discussion.

Features matter in blogs.  Blog platforms used to give you a list of features but they seem to have abandoned that.  But the devil is in the details.

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I’ve been looking at Scribbles today and I have to say I’m impressed so far.  I registered so I could see the admin panel and the posting interface.  The Posting interface is very nice.  Anyone coming over from Blogger or WordPress will find it a breeze to use.

As far as setting up one’s blog the admin menus are well laid out in a fairly clear and simple manner.

I didn’t see a lot layout choices like themes, but I’m not a paid customer so that might be different.

I’m not going to write a review now just letting you know I’m poking around on Scribbles.

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Blogs With a Difference

I just added these two blogs today.  I think they are good examples of specialized use for a blog.

Project Blogs

Here is a blog about a project that might take many months to complete: the encycloReadia project.  Blogger Molly Tov started a separate blog about her reading the print edition 2024 World Book Encyclopedia.  Why? Well you’ll have to read that on her blog.  :)

But I love this blog on two different levels:

1. Just the subject: she’s going to blog about reading an entire encyclopedia.  I mean, how cool is that?
2. That she has started a separate specialized blog to record this.

The point here is that blogs don’t just have to be personal blogs about you.  Sometimes, it might be worthwhile to split off a blog focused just on a particular project or maybe a hobby to better showcase what you are doing over time.

Hyper-Local News Blog

Yeah the PhinneyWood News is a hyper local news blog that covers two neighborhoods.

Sharing a slice of land between Ballard and Green Lake and a main drag of Greenwood Avenue to the north and Phinney Avenue to the south, there is no single word or phrase to describe this unique melding of diverse neighborhoods, but the former Greenwood-Phinney Chamber of Commerce was close with its proud slogan, “Just a little off center.”

Sometimes geography preserves an area giving it a unique character and sometimes a small business and cultural scene separated from the metro area around it.  There are some clues in the quote above about geography and the fact that at one time the area had it’s own Chamber of Commerce that a hyper local news blog might work.   (I’m just guessing, but I bet at one time, decades ago, this area also had  a weekly newspaper. If they did that is another clue.)  But be warned, there is no money in this, you would be doing this out of love for the area.

But it is a good example of what a local news blog could be.

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Six New to Me Blog Publishing Hosts

• Svbtle –  Promises a minimalist, elegant design.
• LMNO –  This one looks like your blog resides on a folder rather than a subdomain.  I’m not sure I’d pay to be on a folder.
• Nucelo –  You can password protect your blog.  Nice option.
• Posthaven –  Password protect your blog or just a section.  They have a forever option that is interesting.  Also commenting.
• Dreamwidth –  You can control many different levels of access and readability.  A fork of the old defunct Livejournal.
• Micro.one –  Micro.blog for beginners.  At $1 per mo. it’s a good deal.

After years of stagnation it seems like more blogging platforms are springing up.  The above are the newest to cross my desk.  You can find even more blogging platforms here.  Free (ad supported) blogging hosts are fading away.  Today you can expect to pay for blog hosting right from the start.  The good news is that many of these blog hosts are very affordable.  That being affordable allows almost anyone to discover how fun and personally rewarding blogging can be.

Do your research for a host and give it a try.

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