Motivated by lil's response in the 'Why do you write' post, I'm starting a blog of my own about all the interesting questions that spatial problems provide. I even made a logo today:
Anyway, while I have an idea of what to talk / write about, I'm still doubting over the medium to use. Blogger, for its ease of use (even though my desired name was taken by some Korean kid)? Or Tumblr, for something like this? Or maybe even Medium, like eightbitsamurai. I don't think building my own site would work right now, as I don't really have time to invest in long CSS projects.
I'll be aiming for something similar to xkcd's What If blog, mixing images with text. This post is attempting to tap into the combined knowledge of hubski, as I have no experience with using any of those sites. Maybe I even missed some important ones. So what do you prefer to write or read on, hubski?
What is your goal? If you are just doing it for yourself, then choose the service you find easiest, cheapest, most amenable to your tastes. If you have later pretension of a commercial form, then select something that gives you total control over your content and site services (e.g. advertising, design, expansion etc). There's nothing to say you can't start small and grow, but if you think ahead a little now, it could save a fair amount of headache later. I have to say if I was starting now, I would go with a self-hosted Wordpress option. You can pick up a web host for pennies now (e.g. stablehost.com) and install WP in seconds, select a theme and you're done. The advantage of using WP self-host over WP.com? You get total control from the beginning over things like ads, plugins and themes. The downsides? You have to make sure it's secure and fast enough etc etc. Hope that helps.
I use Wordpress (I don't have an option; my blog was set up for me through the journal) but I would caution others that it has known security flaws and can be cumbersome to navigate around. I certainly don't have the capabilities to use it to its full potential. I've had trouble trying to get images to imbed in posts, whether through my ignorance or the cumbersome nature of the platform.
WP does definitely have some foibles, as with everything, but once you get the hang of it, it's not that bad. Re embedding images, you should be able to do that fairly easily using the media uploader. Just point your cursor where you want the image to land, then click on the Add Media button at the top left of the editing box, select or upload your choice of image and click Insert Into Post. Does that not work for you?
Good question, my advice would be to use a medium that allows for discussion via Hubski as a commenting platform. I hear there's a Wordpress plugin for that. edit: By the way, I don't know much about blogging spaces and was kidding, though it'd be cool for you to use Hubski comments. I think they're compatible with many different platforms. Also, I really dig the logo. Nice work veen.
Thanks _refugee_ that's really great to hear. Spread the word to your writing counter-parts. I really enjoy having writers be a part of Hubski, it's made a wonderful difference in the site imo.
I added the #askhubski tab. It seems to have over 500 followers.
by nature its the most engaging tag. It's non-exclusive, broad and so it's a place for everyone.
Wordpress is nice and variable, and Medium is an utter joy to write with. I'm waiting until Ghost rolls out their hosted service and considering shifting everything I do to there as a central platform and crossposting (currently I have separate blogs for separate things, and I'd much prefer to have it all on one site in different sections).
An update of sorts for you, blackbootz and eightbitsamurai: I spent most of today getting Ghost hosted on a third-party site so I could get used to it (and brush up my skills, too). The install took a while, and the themes and features are still pretty lacking (though the next update, which is scheduled to be a couple of weeks away, is hopefully adding the ability to sort/categorise by tags, which is exactly what I want). But it looks nice and the posting system and markup is beautiful.
Glad to see all went well. I'm currently (in between school and working on Hubski, which is precious little time) working on setting up a way to manage multiple blogs on a single server so I can host my wife's portfolio and a blog for me as well.
Woah, Ghost looks awesome! Any idea on how much it'll be?
There's one hosted service currently in beta Hostghost and their launch pricing is £3.99/month, so I imaging £5/month minimum wouldn't be too out there.
Ghost source is available for download and runs quite nicely already, for free if you have your own hosting. I'm playing around with it now. Thinking about replacing my own blogging platform with it now, since I I have web refresh coming up. It's beautifully simple.
One more suggestion: Squarespace is rather nice as well.
I have a friend who uses Squarespace and he highly recommends it. If I weren't into the blogging software as much as/more than blogging itself I'd probably use it myself.
I agree with thenewgreen about Wordpress being a good platform. It's easy to use, flexible, and imo has a better interface than blogger. The downside is that it's a bit harder to get viewers without using SEO. Medium is my preferred blogger of choice, because of its easy (and sexy!) interface and "higher topic" emphasis (pics of your cat vs. a discussion on startups). You can also get a ton of views, especially if Medium retweets your post. However you do need a twitter account, and while the userbase is generally thoughtful and kind, there can definitely be an aura of pretentiousness on the site (but isn't that true of any blogging platform?). One last pro: you can compare views to reads, a "read" being scrolling from the top to the bottom of your article. I dunno, I really like that.
If I were you I would start writing on Medium. I've heard great things about it and it allows you to focus on content and let them make it pretty. Once you've done that for I bit, upgrade to wordpress and make it completely yours. We can add Discussion via Hubski through a plugin on Wordpress so you can have all the greatest Hubski comments directly on your blog. The only downside with starting on Wordpress is the startup time. You want to go through themes, customize stuff, figure out workflow, etc. In my opinion, it isn't worth it to go through that until you get in the rhythm and find joy in blogging first. So many people drop out after their first couple months (I'm looking at you JTHipster!)
To be fair to myself, and man this is my first Hubski anything in a long time, I stopped doing movie reviews because I was 1. Moving to Ohio (it's terrible here, fuck the Midwest) and 2. Still working on that damnable tabletop RPG. Which I think is turning out great. I was going to do a review of Ender's Game, then I realized that I really didn't want to do movie reviews anymore. I think part of it is moving away. Most of my friends are still back on the East Coast, and my situation has me in a bit of a funk. There's not much I'll be able to say about a film right now.
Hope things get better for you in the midwest. Saw you a few times around reddit (mostly in the 'reality TV' subreddits, i.e. TiA and SRD). Would love to hear about your experiences designing a tabletop RPG sometime.
You know you can hang out on Hubski without writing reviews..right? Why did you move to Ohio?
I'm already working on something beautiful. I'll post the site very soon! All I'm wondering about the plugin is whether it means that every blog I post will be posted to hubski automatically? Seems a bit spammy to me. Yeah that's my current fear indeed. But I'll be damned if I didn't give it a try.We can add Discussion via Hubski through a plugin on Wordpress so you can have all the greatest Hubski comments directly on your blog.
So many people drop out after their first couple months
Read this: http://hubski.com/pub?id=100957 The comments only show up if you post it to Hubski as well. You can see an example of how it might look here. Here's one with his existing comment section (disqus) + DvH: link jaggs is Red Ferret and also the one who was so kind to have the plugin made. He only posts some of his posts to Hubski, so other posts just look like this Other uses of DvH include theadvancedapes _refugee_ lil. I'm sure they can answer any questions you may have. You can see a feed here. mk we recently added another blog to the list, correct? We should update hubdvhSeems a bit spammy to me.
veen, congrats on this ambitious and exciting step! I look forward to reading what comes of it. I think DvH would be a great fit. You can PM me with any questions etc. Best of luck with Veen Space!
Create a community based website that costs users a minimal cash fee to join. Have the community write the content for you while winning useless but flashy points. Run ads for cash. Sit back, and then write a blog about the experience. Then sell it as a book.
I guess I'm the only Blogger fan here. But my needs are minimal and my time to explore, experiment, read instructions, is non-existent. I'm also not interested in monetizing. veen, you have things to say about what you're learning in urban design. I had things to say about what I was teaching, experiencing, learning and the blog seemed like a good way to get the stuff in one place. I've discovered a lot of things through the process of doing it. I suggest just get started discovering what you want to say and show graphically about urban design. Write and post some pieces. Even just post them here to start. theadvancedapes has been changing his blog gradually since he began. The more you do it, the more you discover what you need, I guess. Good luck.