Part of connecting is communicating and part of communicating in a virtual world often includes blogging on a larger or smaller scale.
It's not like there's not lots of detailed information available for bloggers at any stage of the blogging process, about layouts and comments and RSS and all the rest. But what may have a greater impact that we really appreciate is where we set our blogs up.
Still, one of the first questions I'm asked by bloggers - including beginners, total noobies who who are considering starting a blog, as well as previously casual bloggers who want to get a current blog onto a more professional looking platform is this:
Where should I set up my blog?
Let's go beyond my opinion and check out the Blog software comparison that charts information from the article "Time to check: Are you using the right blogging tool?" Lots of information about online publishing is available through The Annenberg Center affiliated with USC and their updated Easy Publishing Tools for Online Journalists
My take is that Annenberg is a quite reliable resource, mainly because of their high profile in conjunction with USC and because they don't have a dog in the fight. I on the other hand am biased as a very pro-typepad user after lots of experience with LiveJournal and Blogger/Blogspot and a shorter experience with SquareSpace.
One of my daughters likes Wordpress and many high visibility bloggers do as well. For me it's an unnecessarily complex system with multiple plug-ins that I'm not geeky enough to understand, and many users are *clubby* which can come off as condescending to others that don't use it.
What it comes down to is that Typepad has the right combination of reasonable cost, being intuitive, and having the right number of easy bells and whistles to make it work for my needs.
In any case, you'll probably want to check out the information at the Annenberg Center. They may have just the magic words that will help you find your perfect way to reach the bloggosphere with your insights, news, or whatever it is you're interested in sharing.
