the best platform is the one that allows you to blog
remember that the blog you create can be ephemeral and temporary. you can archive it and transfer it at any time you like. what matters is that you have a space to write and to share it in the way you'd like.
if you still have trouble deciding on a platform after looking through this brief list, feel free to comment and share what you have in mind.
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some of these platforms tend to take on 'traditional' blogging formats. try to ignore that and blog as you please.
it's your choice to activate/care about engagement/comments; to explore non-linear blogs (what if you wrote topic-based entries that you constantly updated as opposed to time-based ones like on regular chronological blogs); to try to blog with friends & others (you can simply share an account, or there are some platforms like wordpress.org that natively support multiple authors); you should consider how you write/where and what tools and workflows allow you to get there. you might use two different platforms: one to actually get words down (like pen & paper, your notes app, gdocs, or ms word) and another one to share your thoughts at. you might have different audiences in mind that work for different blogging platforms: you might want to make a specific type of network of friends in one, and have another blog be dedicated to close friends & family and have a lot more friction to find.
it's all up to you — hopefully these questions get you thinking
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wordpress.com/.org
wordpress.com is easier to set-up: it's a site builder that essentially gives you a free [yourblog].wordpress.com url – though has a lot more constraints; you need to pay to remove ads or access plugins – which sucks. it has a lot of rich themes and community support though, and is very unlikely to go down.
wordpress.org is a free, open-source version of the blogging platform that you can download for free with all features unlocked (minus plugins and themes made by third-parties that you have to pay for). you need a webhost like namecheap (what i use); oftentimes these webhosts have a software manager called 'softaculous' built into their control panel that will make installation very easy – you wouldn't have to download anything, just click to set it up.
these might be some of the most common names across blogging platforms – but they're a bit tricky to understand.
~ wordpress.com has social features, but a lot of antiquated ones (like gravatar and 'likes' being linked to any wordpress.com account and honestly looking a bit spammy) as well.
- wordpress.org is complicated
blogger/blogspot (what this is hosted on)
+ free
+ very customizable, control over look (you can learn html/css to make this more powerful)
+ decent mobile support (i use blogg, a third-party ios app that makes it work perfectly and uploading photo/video is honestly better on this app than on the actual site)
+ comments, social features are built-in, you can have an invite-only or password protected blog. you can see stats if youd like
~ tied to google account (note that google might kill it, but its been alive for decades so maybe not)
~ you can have as many as you want
~ looks ancient, which might be something youre into
reading.supply
+ very clean editor, minimal and focused on writing
~ you need an access code so you might not be able to get it right during this workshop
- not very customizable, the very clean/white/kinda sterile look is something youre stuck to
also similar to: medium.com,
another very classic, old school kind of journal site that has been around for quite a while
+ free
+ based on livejournal codebase
+ very customizable, lots of templates (albeit dated) you can build off of
+ social features
tumblr
+ free
+ VERY CUSTOMIZABLE: you have so many themes to build on top off and you can add pages to your tumblr blog that use the theme or RAW HTML which feels a bit unprecedented
+ you can have multiple blogs and urls and add custom domains, super mixed media
+ fun social features like submissions and q&a
+ fun social features like submissions and q&a
+ built-in archive, tagging/search system which is decent if
~ has a feed if you don't like those kinds of things, but you can treat it completely separate from that
- can't remove the social features and overlays on your blog (but this is true for many other platforms, the reblog/follow is just a bit more glaring on tumblr)
- text editor kinda sucks for long form
cargo
+ customizable, very good templates offered – you will need some html/css knowledge to really bend the templates
~ no social features or metrics to worry about, unless you choose to add your own
~ free for students or nonprofits (if you need a promo code let me know and i can try to help!)
- hard to use on mobile
- not as optimized for blogs but you can use it for it easily too; this is not a blog but the wbru radio station is built with cargo has lovely blog pages for news entries
you can also consider simple site builders like...
- https://mmm.page: drag-and-drop website builder
- https://onuniverse.com/: a mobile-first website builder, easy drag-and-drop
you can explore digital garden platforms...
- sane.fyi: describes as a 'social tool for thought', for collating notes
- see this guide on how to setup a digital garden
other platforms to try
- montaigne: create a blog from any of your apple notes. you can have multiple sites and all you need to do is connect your apple id – im currently trying this!
- substack: i know this is the '''future''' of blogging because now you can directly email readers and it goes to their inboxes etc but i dont consider it the same. i do follow many substack blogs and theyre building so many nice features that its hard to let go of this - but i still dont like how it commodifies audience and im averse to the format of newsletter in general (even if you can read the ''archive'' its not what its optimized for and its so much less configurable than id like)
- google docs: what if your blog was just a google docs. can turn comments/suggestions on. not joking!
- nicheless: a minimal microblogging platform like twitter, but capped at 300 words.
- futureland.tv: a habit tracker that allows you to make multiple notebooks/journals with a beautiful rich text editor. it's mostly gamified through 'streaks' that encourage you to set a goal (eg post everyday or post every 3 days) – but you can ignore this and treat it like a social or private log that is very simple to use and update.
- are.na: a popular connection-building and archival social site with mobile apps. media (of any kind, from pdfs to text to videos) are treated as 'blocks' that you can place into 'channels'. you can connect blocks to any number of channels, and channels to other channels. are.na is wonderful because it largely attracts artists/creators/academics, so the curation of content (unlike pinterest) is incredibly thoughtful and provocative (we are very biased but for good reason).
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