Find fame with blogger (blogger.com)

Member Name: MisterReview

Product:	blogger.com
Date:	01/05/09 (103 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A great publishing tool

Disadvantages: None really that I can think of

'Blogger' is just one of the many brands out there on the world wide web who are offering the opportunity for you to have a blog.

So what is a blog and what do you do with it?

At its simplest a blog could be considered as having your own website, but it is different. Having your own website usually operates differently in that you have to get a domain name, then you need a host to actually keep and serve up the files you intend the world to see.

A blog on the other hand is a little more instant - all you need to do is choose a username and password and a name for your blog. Give this info to Blogger, plus an email address for you to enable you to verify yourself with them. Now you have a blog.

So now you have a blog what are you gonna do with it?

Well it helps to know that the word blog is a contraction of the phrase 'weblog'. In other words a log, or a diary that you keep using the world wide web as the medium for storage and presentation.

So, what you are gonna do now that you have the blog is tell the world about yourself. What you do, your interests. Perhaps you may not want to tell the world about yourself, perhaps you want to tell the world about a hobby, or 'news' events that the broadcast media don't find newsworthy.

It is best to think of it as a log, rather than a website, as it revolves around making entries, which are shown at the side of the page (you can alter this).

Blogger is very flexible in that it allows the user to play around with the layout of the pages, which for the non-techie are provided as templates. If you can write the appropriate scripts, or whatever they are called (I am no techie, sorry for my lack of knowledge), you can display your blog in a rather interesting manner.

As it stands though for dunces like me, there are many layout tools which allow you to format your text, add pictures and video.

I got into blogging a few years ago with the intention of making some cash on the back of it. Bearing in mind there are billions of websites, pages and blogs out there, as well as youtube videos and the like, you might as well forget about using a blog to make cash, unless you have an extremely attractive idea for a blog, you continually work at keeping it updated and fresh, and you really have a finger on the pulse of viral marketing. I don't!

I am not putting anyone off though who simply wants to publish information around the web for whatever reason. It certainly is a great tool and takes the power of the media away from the powerful ~ well sort of!

This review has only reviewed Blogger using it at its simplest potential. I have only ever used it for simple text and images. I understand Blogger is part of the Google group, and as such has a host of pages of help and advice for blogger. This can take a bit of getting used to, but for those who want to be uber-bloggers, it should be well worth the time spent.

Summary: 5 star