Free web servers - CHAPTER 13 INTRODUCING WORDPRESS 371 the top
CHAPTER 13 INTRODUCING WORDPRESS 371 the top of the page. The entries were links to interesting web pages, the latest news stories with commentary and opinions, or essays and personal stories. And they always had links to other people s weblogs. Early pioneers were Jesse James Garrett, Cameron Barrett, Peter Merholz, and Brigitte Eaton, among many others. But these sites were still essentially maintained by hand with page-creation applications or homegrown software. In 1999, services like Pitas.com (http://www.pitas.com/), Blogger (http://blogger.com/), and Groksoup (no longer online) were launched, suddenly making it incredibly easy (and free) to create, publish, and maintain your own blog. Desktop software like Radio UserLand (http:// radio.userland.com/) allowed you to publish your blog easily from the desktop. You could install server-based software like Greymatter (http://www.noahgrey.com/greysoft/) and Movable Type (http://sixapart.com/) on your own server or shared hosting service to publish your blog. The final ingredient to the explosion of blogs and blogging is comments. Some blogging software allows you to have comments. Other blogging tools can make use of third-party services like HaloScan (http://www.haloscan.com/) or YACCS (http://rateyourmusic.com/yaccs/) for commenting. So much more than guest books, which were common and allowed you to get feedback on your site, comments allow you to get feedback on your individual stories. Was the review any good? What do other people think of the news item you just blogged about? With blog publishing software and user comments, the Web became truly interactive. A simple post on your opinion of the latest blockbuster movie can trigger a conversation that continues for days. This involves not just each reader interacting with you, but also your readers interacting with each other. You can easily build up quite a community of like-minded people, or even unlike-minded people if you enjoy a good debate. Weblogs as journals can also be used as a stream-of-consciousness publishing tool, where a blogger writes and comments on anything and everything. A lot of bloggers publish opinionated commentary on a wide range of topics. Other people blog as a means of keeping family and friends updated about their lives. Today, it is easy to have your voice heard all the way across the world, to publish your thoughts and opinions, and to have anyone and everyone join your conversation. You simply pick any of several online services or choose one of many software packages, and you can be talking to the world in hours, if not minutes. Weblog Software Today s weblog publishing software can be broadly categorized in two ways: the type of software and the method of publishing. Here, I ll describe these categories, as well as the disadvantages and advantages of each publishing method. Types of Blogging Software Three main types of blogging software are available: Desktop-based: These applications allow you to develop your content on your desktop, possibly offline, and publish to either a hosted service or your own server. Examples include Radio UserLand (http://radio.userland.com/), ecto (http://ecto.kung-foo.tv/), and iBlog (http://www.lifli.com/Products/iBlog/main.htm).
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