Blogging Infrastructure - Some Notes For Designing A New Blog
One of the struggles I've been going through for two months is in choosing the most appropriate blogging platform for several new blogs (mine, friends, family) that I'm trying to set up. There are a number of features that are absolutely crucial for the selected platform to have:
Now, there are many platforms that can offer some of these features. As I've mentioned in previous posts, Drupal and WordPress offer most of the above, but not all features simultaneous. Drupal gives database errors on my domains. WordPress doesn't have an ad revenue sharing plugin that I could find.
So what do I, other than tear my hair out in frustration? Choose one and pray it's the most optimal? Which one is that? I need ALL of the above features simultaneously. Well, for my particular situation, it means selecting WordPress (1.5.2 - I'm not ready to tackle the new 2.0.1) and slowly tweaking the code, maybe even writing my own plugin. This beats having to write my own custom blog platform.
Despite all the praise I heaped on Drupal recently (I still like it better), the database problems are too big for me to tackle. I'd have to either change my host provider (which I'm not doing), or entirely rewrite the way the database management is run.
As I've said before, choose your blog platform wisely, with the intent of using it long-term, or at least for a few years.
(c) Copyright: 2006-present, Raj Kumar Dash, http://blogspinner.countwordula.com/
Technorati Tags: blogspinner, blogging, pro blogging, multi blogs, blog platforms, blog design, wordpress, drupal
- Online community-building features:
- Forums
- Personal blogs
- Contribution tracking
- Ad revenue sharing (at least Google AdSense)
- Easy-to-use for site contributors
- Easy redesign of page templates. I have at least 4 templates to set up, and each one is going to take at least 4-8 hours per template.
- Multiple-site managment on a single install, or failing that, minimal effort for configuration. (I don't have time to waste each time I install the software. I have far too many sites to manage, and that list is growing.)
- No internet host provider-related problems. (I.e., should work on all hosts offering PHP scripting and mySQL databases.)
- Be OpenSource, so that I can either find free/ inexpensive plugins easily, or write my own.
- Have supportive user community. (By "user", in this case I mean publishers that use the platform.)
Now, there are many platforms that can offer some of these features. As I've mentioned in previous posts, Drupal and WordPress offer most of the above, but not all features simultaneous. Drupal gives database errors on my domains. WordPress doesn't have an ad revenue sharing plugin that I could find.
So what do I, other than tear my hair out in frustration? Choose one and pray it's the most optimal? Which one is that? I need ALL of the above features simultaneously. Well, for my particular situation, it means selecting WordPress (1.5.2 - I'm not ready to tackle the new 2.0.1) and slowly tweaking the code, maybe even writing my own plugin. This beats having to write my own custom blog platform.
Despite all the praise I heaped on Drupal recently (I still like it better), the database problems are too big for me to tackle. I'd have to either change my host provider (which I'm not doing), or entirely rewrite the way the database management is run.
As I've said before, choose your blog platform wisely, with the intent of using it long-term, or at least for a few years.
(c) Copyright: 2006-present, Raj Kumar Dash, http://blogspinner.countwordula.com/
Technorati Tags: blogspinner, blogging, pro blogging, multi blogs, blog platforms, blog design, wordpress, drupal
