Monday, October 29, 2007

Blogger widget mad

I'm going to be helping someone with her personal site, and I've been really pushing for her to use Blogger as the main site. I think it has more attraction and immediacy than personal domain sites. What do you think?

If you have specific interests, it's so easy to put enough tags/labels into your posts that people find you and start up a conversation. And you don't have to deal with the runaway webmaster, which various friends/clients always seem to be complaining about. I mean, how hard is it to upload an image or a video in blogger? And you can include interactive Flash and JavaScript. candy on the house!

And it's FREE! And when you want to add a post you just do it-- you don't have to bitch about how hard it is to get your webmaster to update, or struggle with css. Many people starting with blogger don't realize it's potentially more free form and more like a website than a diary, if you're willing to experiment.

The downside is you don't get the full page, and it's a little trickier to design things as you want them, but it can be done. I've seen hacks for making blogger three columns, though I haven't tried it yet.

Anyway, with that said, I can explain why I currently have so much TECHNO widgetry on this blog today, like who just said what when, and a calendar of past posts rather than the long list, and which posts are most popular-- now that widget is butt ugly but I haven't found a prettier one yet. If any of you want leads to where I found this stuff, just holler.

4 comments:

Linda Davick said...

What an interesting idea. It makes me wonder if I could use a "blog" as my illustration site. I'm sure you'll crack the code & figure out how to get animation into the top panel shortly .... But I guess you could always --Gosh, this is definitely something to consider. Hilarious! Creative. Don't get those watercolors out quite yet.

Anonymous said...

Using Flickr is an interesting way to categorize and show visuals. For example:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/80146660@N00/
I don't know how much you can play with the background & other elements ... probably not much you can do widget-wise (?)

Anonymous said...

I've been thinking a blog is a sensible way to have a website: especially when it's free and so easy to update and someone else manages the server for you. True, you don't have the control over all the design, and it's a template so not unique, but the design is nicer than many sites out there. I guess I am starting to use mine to promote my work, too. However, I keep rearranging things to try to make them easier to find: this is my main concern.

Sally said...

Linda, you could also have a second blog that's nothing but images and information on art for sale. I mean the thing with blogs is you don't have to update them, and you can put page elements that don't change at top center, as I've done temporarily with Whinsey's closet piece.