So- how does one start a blog?

sheadakota

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Sorry if this has been covered- I couldn't find the thread if it was- Now please consider I am not very savy when it comes to anything other than word docs on the computer- Do I need to find a computer literate person to help me start one? Does it cost anything to maintain? Are things like facebook and myspace and live journal considered blogs?

Sorry for the stupid questions- but you have to start somewhere.:tongue
 

ritinrider

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I can answer some of your questions, but hopefully some of the more experienced bloggers will be along to give you more, and better, advice. But know this, if I can do a blog, it's not hard and anyone with internet access can do one.

Sorry if this has been covered- I couldn't find the thread if it was- Now please consider I am not very savy when it comes to anything other than word docs on the computer- Do I need to find a computer literate person to help me start one?

No, there is no need to find a 'computer literate' person to help you start one. I started one of mine late one night when I was feeling depressed, and the subject came up in the chat room. Someone said, "it's easy, just go to blogger and set up and account. " So, not having any better sense, that's what I did.

Does it cost anything to maintain? Are things like facebook and myspace and live journal considered blogs?

The only expense in maintaining a blog is time. I'm not sure if facebook, myspace, or live journal are considered blogs. Anyone?

Sorry for the stupid questions- but you have to start somewhere.:tongue

There are no stupid questions, sometimes our world changes so fast it's hard to keep up. You're next question about blogging will probably be, "what's the best blog host?" Sorry, can't help you there, although there is a thread somewhere here in the blogging section on blog hosts. I know that two of the more popular hosts are Blogger (which I think is owned by goggle), and Wordpress. I use both, my scholarship blog, see my siggy is on wordpress, my general and playing around blog, One Woman's View, is on blogger.

Welcome to the world of blogging. Have fun.
 

Jenifer

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Livejournal is a blogging service. :) I wouldn't consider Myspace or Facebook real blogs, myself, although those sites have that feature.

I use Blogger.
 

sheadakota

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Thanks Jenifer and ritinrider- I'l check out blogger and see what I can do!
 

benbradley

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To clear up possible confusion, blogger is also called blogspot. If you go to my blog in my sig, on blogspot.com and then click on the orange B in the upper left corner, it will go to blogger.com. Dunno why it uses two names and two domains like that, but it can be confusing. Maybe it was originally two blog sites and one bought out the other many years ago.

But anyway, there's also http://livejournal.com that you mentioned, where I have a page and made a few posts years ago. I have the impression there's a lot of political blogs there, but blogger seems to be more popular overall (at least on AW!).

They're all pretty much free (there may be "extra features" they might charge for, but you sure don't need any of those to get started, and most people never need them), and the only "maintenance" I can think of is approving moderated comments on my blog (which I have set for comments to be moderated solely to stop spammers from posting).

It's REALLY no big deal at all. Signing up on a blog site and making a blog post is just about as easy as signing up for the Absolute Write Water Cooler forums and making a forum post, and it looks like you managed to do that! :)
 
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Dawno

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Sorry if this has been covered- I couldn't find the thread if it was- Now please consider I am not very savy when it comes to anything other than word docs on the computer- Do I need to find a computer literate person to help me start one? Does it cost anything to maintain? Are things like facebook and myspace and live journal considered blogs?

Sorry for the stupid questions- but you have to start somewhere.:tongue

You might have just not looked in the main Blogging forum - there's this thread: http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=105578

and this one: http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=103044, too. :)
 

sheadakota

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Thanks Ben and Dawno! Must of missed the thread- sorry about that- lots of good info there!