How To Start A Blog: Blog Platform
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How To Start A Blog: Blog Platform

by Seth · 44 comments

Start­ing your blog is excit­ing and a lot of fun.  Most peo­ple have read a friend’s blog or maybe a busi­ness blog while online.  Then even­tu­ally the thought comes… “I think I want to start a blog”.  After a few weeks or months you even­tu­ally get around to start­ing it and then you think to your­self, “How do you start a blog”?

You start a blog with a blog plat­form.  More advanced blog­gers call these blog­ging plat­forms — con­tent man­age­ment sys­tems (cms).  The pur­pose of cms is to help you cre­ate and orga­nize your blog.  There are many avail­able sys­tems for users which we will explore through­out this post.

Blog Plat­forms

Putting together this list has been both fun and sur­pris­ing.  There are so many options for your blog­ging needs that new blog­gers (and vet­er­ans) can find what works best for them.  Let’s get started:

WordPress.org1. WordPress.org

Hands down the best CMS — Blog plat­form around.  If you want your blog to be pro­fes­sional, styl­ish and eas­ily cus­tomized then Word­Press is the only real option.  With con­stant updates to make your ver­sion more secure there is no safer way to blog.  The soft­ware is com­pletely free too.  For easy cus­tomiza­tion and excel­lent sup­port for if you get stuck, choose WordPress.org.

Blogger2. Blog­ger

Per­haps the most pop­u­lar blog plat­form is Blog­ger.  Owned by Google, this blog plat­form is sim­ple and free.  Offer­ing some very easy adap­tions with other Google prod­ucts Blog­ger is a very nice choice for any­one look­ing to start a blog.  The major draw­backs… lit­tle cus­tomiza­tion, lit­tle updat­ing, and almost no pro­tec­tion for your con­tent (it could be taken down at any time).  So although a pop­u­lar choice, not the #1 rec­om­men­da­tion for any­one look­ing to blog long term.

wpcom3. WordPress.com

Using WordPress.org’s easy blog­ging plat­form for max­i­mum cus­tomiza­tion and secu­rity updates the .com ver­sion also offers free host­ing.  The only down­side to this instead of the .org… you don’t have an orig­i­nal domain name (web address/url).  Great func­tion­al­ity though.

Joomla4. Joomla

Used by Har­vard Uni­ver­sity and an MTV affil­i­ate, Joomla is noth­ing to toss out!  With easy start-ups and one click down­load­ing you can get your blog off the ground in no time.  Just look for Joomla’s fea­tures and com­pare them with other blog plat­forms to find out that it is one of the contenders.

typepad_logo5. Type­pad

Qual­ity blog­ging sys­tem with lots of tem­plates to choose from.  My prob­lem with them… the most basic pack­age is $5 and to get your own domain name you pay almost $9 a month.  Why Type­pad?  Sim­ple inter­face, seo friendly blog design.

movabletype6. Mov­able Type

Another option for blog­ging is Mov­able Type.  Their resume includes Brit­tney Spears and Barack Obama.  So they have some rep­utable clients, what fea­tures stick out?  The best fea­ture they have is the abil­ity to eas­ily build an inter­ac­tive forum on your blog.  Word­Press also does this, but with Mov­able Type, it is built in.

drupal-logo7. Dru­pal

The Dru­pal project is sim­i­lar to many of the other Blog plat­forms.  Being open-sourced the cod­ing for the plat­form is shared so that the com­mu­nity can make improve­ments to its fea­tures and func­tion­al­ity. Dru­pal

livejournal_logo8. Live­Jour­nal

Often abbre­vi­ated LJ, users can eas­ily make their blog into a per­sonal diary or jour­nal.  With over 21.7 mil­lion blogs cre­ated since 1999 they have a pretty long track record for the inter­net.  Live­Jour­nal

expressionengine_logo9. Expres­sion Engine

A paid CMS, Expres­sion Engine offers a free copy only to those wish­ing to cre­ate a “per­sonal” blog about them­selves or fam­ily.  It also comes with no sup­port, unless you upgrade to the $99 per­sonal ver­sion (which still does not allow com­mer­cial use).  To get com­mer­cial use blog soft­ware you have to fork out $249, and that only gets you a year of updates and sup­port!  Not to men­tion that pop­u­lar plug-ins on Word­Press cost almost $50 in EE.  Avoid at all costs!

weebly10. Wee­bly

Using a super-easy inter­face any body online can cre­ate a blog.  With drag and drop options, lay­out and theme set-up is quick and easy.  Adding con­tent is even eas­ier.  Draw­backs, they take a per­cent­age of your Ad rev­enue and only allow sim­ple cus­tomiza­tions. Great for some­one with zero expe­ri­ence.  It is also pretty fun to play around with.  Look to this Blog Plat­form to have some pretty cool fea­tures in the future. Wee­bly

squarespace11. Square­Space

Cost­ing $8 a month you get host­ing and a pretty good design ser­vice.  None of the fea­tures are out­stand­ing but the ser­vice is ami­able and the oppor­tu­nity for future fea­tures is pretty good.

tumblr12. Tum­blr

Dubbed the eas­i­est way to blog, Tum­blr is less like a blog and more like a mix between twit­ter and blog­ging.  Most of the blog­ging offers no real infor­ma­tion like a nor­mal blog post, but a lit­tle more fea­tures, like images, than twitter.

xanga13. Xanga

More of a social net­work of blogs then just a soft­ware sys­tem, Xanga looks like a party online.  With blog col­ors, popluar posts, and lots of inter­ac­tion between fel­low Xanga mem­bers this cms is ideal for the casual blog­ger.  The basic func­tions offer the abil­ity to post, but no real pro­fes­sional appli­ca­tions are available.

Windows_Live_Spaces_logo14. Win­dows Live Spaces

Based on sim­plic­ity and famil­iar­ity, Win­dows Live Spaces offers a very com­fort­able way to blog.  Sim­i­lar in feel­ing to the other Microsoft prod­ucts, Live Spaces offers aver­age users aver­age functionality.

vox15. Vox

Sim­ple, sexy, smart. Every­thing you want in a blog.  That’s the slo­gan of Vox, a smaller blog plat­form com­pany.  It is design to work for the per­sonal blog­ger who is look­ing to share more about life and get pic­tures and cur­rent events online.

Skyrock_logo16. Sky­rock

Sky­rock used largely for blogs about music, this blog is young and so are the users.  Get to know this blog­ging plat­form if you are look­ing to meet other music peo­ple and start a sim­ple blog about some­thing you love.

opendiary17. Open Diary

Known as OD, this online diary com­mu­nity is dra­matic and young.  The old­est blog­ging com­mu­nity online, Open Diary offers free and paid ser­vices.  The users are gen­er­ally young and a major­ity are female.  Worth see­ing a piece of history.

blogrs18. Blogge.rs

A free blog­ging ser­vice with basic ser­vice.  It is incred­i­bly small with lit­tle to no inter­ac­tion or future.  Cur­rently there are only 217 blogs total using this sys­tem.  Another good sta­tis­tic to show you not to go here is that the most recent update from all of those blogs was over 17 hours ago!!!  Noth­ing is alive over there… stay away!

radient19. Radi­ant

If you are savvy with Ruby on Rails then try it out and see how you like it.  If you don’t know what that means then avoid this cms.  Focus­ing on basic fea­tures like pages and snip­pets, Radi­ant instantly alien­ates the rest of the blog­ging world by call­ing every­thing some­thing else.  Like I said, if you are not a pro­gram­mer that is famil­iar with RoR, then don’t even bother.

injader20. Injader

Claim to fame for Injader is that it has no need for dozens of plug-ins because it offers a hand-built core soft­ware sys­tem in which the fea­tures on plug-ins are already included in the core.  Seems sim­ple enough.  Worth a try, but just know that not a lot of blog­gers use Injader, so updates will be less fre­quent then WordPress.

Con­clu­sion

Word­Press is still the best after look­ing exten­sively at 19 other Blog plat­forms.  It not only looks the best in the admin panel, but also offers the most func­tion­al­ity for FREE. So do your­self a favor, if you have another blog or are about to start blog­ging and go with WordPress.org

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Article by Seth

You just read an article from a seasoned blogger and web consultant. Besides blogging, stumbling, and twittering I enjoy road bikes, basketball and Razorback football. I am one of Blogussion's biggest fans!

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Nick Tart | JuniorBiz August 23, 2009 at 10:20 am

Nice article, Seth! I can tell you did your research. I contacted Alex earlier this summer because I was using Joomla and this blog encouraged me to switch to WordPress. I wish I had this list when I first started…

Also, great use of div’s in this post!
Nick Tart | JuniorBiz´s last blog ..Top 5 Most Effective Commercial Series on TV

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Seth August 24, 2009 at 7:14 am

Thanks Nick! Alex is great for all of that information. I wrote the post and Alex is the one who inserted the images and the div’s. That is the real beauty of partnerships! He has so many talents that I don’t, and hopefully it works the other way too!

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Jason Stanley August 23, 2009 at 10:55 am

I don’t think that you should write of expression engine so quickly. EE is awesome. Perhaps not the best option for a personal blog but if you are planning something big which will eventually become feature rich then EE is an excellent choice.

Regard Joomla, it isn’t very user friendly, the admin interface is clunky and the plugins are a bit hit and miss when it comes to quality.

The latest version of Wordpress has been very flawed when it came to security. You mention numerous security updates ensure ‘there is no safer way to blog’. To be honest, these security issues which they are fixing should of been corrected during testing. Instead, due to the rapid development speed they have been missed. It is worrying that the latest version of Wordpress has had 4 security updates..

Despite the recent security let downs by Wordpress, it is one of the best blogging platforms about. I recommend it frequently to people starting up a blog.
Jason Stanley´s last blog ..Small Observation

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Seth August 24, 2009 at 7:12 am

Well I guess I will definitely have to look at EE again to discover some of their other features.

About Wordpress… I think although they are continually updating for security measures, I find it comforting that they also update for features so often. I understand that open source is going to be different. I am just glad that they are so willing and proficient and quickly fixing any problems found.

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Marcell August 23, 2009 at 12:37 pm

I love wordpress and think it is the best. There’s no other cms like it.

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Seth August 24, 2009 at 7:13 am

So do I! It is extremely functional and gives so many options to the user.

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Stefan August 23, 2009 at 2:51 pm

It’s truly amazing how many blog plattforms there are today. Personally I prefer to use Wordpress and have done so ever since I abandoned my own CMS after using Drupal and Joomla.
Stefan´s last blog ..How to Research Valuable Keywords

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steve weaver August 23, 2009 at 3:39 pm

I have both wordpress and weebly blogs. WP is MUCH harder to use for old (I’m 49!!) non-techie types. To be fair, I got a domain name for use with WP but stuck with .weebly.com for my older mostly for practice website. For people who are setting up a personal site just for family and friends I would recommend weebly by far.
steve weaver´s last blog ..Non-conformity and Me

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Seth August 24, 2009 at 7:15 am

Weebly is a fun cms to work with. I started a weebly blog a long time ago and had a blast using the blog and website functions. For clients looking to just have a good time, and with no technological background, I sometimes recommend Weebly.

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Bader Alrayyes August 23, 2009 at 7:07 pm

weebly is very good for begginers , you can create your blog like playing a game ,, so easy !
personally the best platform for me is Wordpress of course either if its on their free blog account or independent one ( hosted ) , followed by blogger .. you can get traffic like magic , before 4 years i started a blog on blogger , i wrote some rubbish content .. i admit lol , i was total noob , but what i got is page rank 3 … i deleted the blog LOL … Oh me !
Bader Alrayyes´s last blog ..5 FREE RSS Feed Directories for more blog traffic

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Seth August 26, 2009 at 10:47 am

That really is too bad! Yeah I find Weebly really fun to play with and easy for beginners.
Seth´s last blog ..From Planning to Earning – A New Guide Proving it’s Never Too Late to Earn Money Blogging

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Julie Howard August 29, 2010 at 11:57 am

I’m a total newbie and am interested in how “you can get traffic like magic.”

Can you please point me in the right direction?

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Danny Brown August 23, 2009 at 7:29 pm

No Posterous? http://posterous.com

This is really taking off and acts as not only a simple yet stylish blogging platform, but a great social hub as well, with integration with numerous other social networks, sites and platforms.

Though I’m still a WP.org guy myself ;-)
Danny Brown´s last blog ..Why It’s All About Community

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elmot l PinoySoundingBoard August 23, 2009 at 9:44 pm

Wow, this is alot of blogging platforms Seth on your post. All I know before was of course WP, blogger, joomla, typepad…
elmot l PinoySoundingBoard´s last blog ..Too Cocky With The Party-List System. PoOf!

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Igor Helps You Succeed August 24, 2009 at 1:35 am

I had no idea there were so much blogging platforms out there.
However, I am totally satisfied with wordpress.

Igor
Igor Helps You Succeed´s last blog ..Have Your Twitter Followers Already Informed You That You’re Annoying?

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Chris Mollo August 24, 2009 at 1:42 am

Great post. I certainly agree with the Wordpress conclusion. I have been blogging for a little over two months now. Currently I am using Blogger, and I like it. I have a set system of goals that I laid out for myself and that’s why I started with a free application. I didn’t want to invest any money without knowing if blogging was something I would like or be good at. I decided that if I could get my Blogger blog to the point that I had 1000 unique hits every day for 7 days then I would get my own domain name and paid hosting and start a Wordpress blog. I think that makes sense. I am at about 250-300 unique hits per day. This post opened my eyes to some other platforms, but I still think I’ll try Wordpress. They seem to be about the best. Thanks.
Chris Mollo´s last blog ..Obama Takes Another Vacation

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Seth August 24, 2009 at 7:17 am

Good luck on your project to find major success! I think you would have a much easier time reaching your goal if it were with WP, but you seem to be doing well so far!

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James Mann August 24, 2009 at 6:11 am

Well I am officially blown away. I knew there were a few blogging platforms but only thought there were 5 or 6.

I have only used a couple myself and seemed to stick with Wordpress as it does all I need and has so many themes and plugins.

Now I am very curious about the other platforms I will have to go and check them out individually. Glad it’s a rainy day, still a little left over from hurricane Bill.

It will give me some time to see what they are all about. Great article.
James Mann´s last blog ..The Man Behind Site Build It Review

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Rob Dolin August 24, 2009 at 10:55 am

Thanks for including Windows Live Spaces in your list. I’m glad to hear you think it’s “a very comfortable way to blog.” Cheers–
–Rob

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Jeremiah@The Future of Blog August 24, 2009 at 12:28 pm

I have to disagree with your point that Blogger doesn’t offer customization. It’s probably the most customizable free blogging platform. You can change every aspect of your theme, use your own advertising, and much more!

I will say this, though, customizing Blogger themes is a lot more difficult than Wordpress themes, IMO.
Jeremiah@The Future of Blog´s last blog ..Mobilize Your Blog Theme With WPtouch

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Klaus @ TechPatio August 24, 2009 at 1:35 pm

I’m amazed that there are so many competent blogging platforms, but also relieved to see what you believe WordPress is the best, so I don’t have to stay up all night thinking whether or not I should move to a differerent platform :)
Klaus @ TechPatio´s last blog ..How Do You Decide Which Charity To Donate to? Childrens, Animals, Cancer, or…?

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Jake | Web Journey August 24, 2009 at 7:25 pm

Wordpress.org is definitely the way to go! It was very interesting to see many of the other blogging platforms though; I am surprised at how many of them there are.
Jake | Web Journey´s last blog ..Forget Search Engines for a Bit

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Reza Winandar August 25, 2009 at 8:38 am

Just because using Wordpress.org doesn’t mean you can named Blgospot. I tell you what, Amanda Fazani are using blogspot and she’s success and many blogger with blogspot platform are success too. Platform isn’t important, the important thing is content.
Reza Winandar´s last blog ..How People Make Money Online?

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Seth August 25, 2009 at 10:56 am

I agree about the content, it is the overall most important thing, but the blog platform makes a huge difference in how easy it is to produce, promote and manage all of the content you work so hard to create.

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chandan saud August 25, 2009 at 8:58 am

Nice blog. You make a really very nice and helpful post.
chandan saud´s last blog ..Social bookmark versus search engine [del.icio.us]

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Enk. August 26, 2009 at 1:12 am

Wow Cool List.
Saw many of the Blogging Platforms I didn’t even knew they existed, haha ! :)
Enk.´s last blog ..101+ Killer Typographic Logos (Fresh Collection)

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Jacob Yap August 26, 2009 at 4:48 am

OMG, 20 types of blogging platform? I just knew some of them, haha.
Jacob Yap´s last blog ..A Review of the Godlike Thesis Wordpress Theme

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BLOGERCISE August 26, 2009 at 6:57 am

There is no doubt WP is the best blogging platform. And I’m not sure it makes sense to compare to full on site systems. But if anyone is looking for a comprehensive CMS, my vote would always go to e107.
BLOGERCISE´s last blog ..The Adsense SEO Guide

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Seth August 26, 2009 at 10:51 am

Well, the beauty of wordpress is now it really does allow you the full functionality of a comprehensive CMS. You just need a few plug-ins to add forums, microblogging, web pages, and anything else you could want. I do like e107, but WP is so comprehensive!
Seth´s last blog ..From Planning to Earning – A New Guide Proving it’s Never Too Late to Earn Money Blogging

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Adam Baird August 26, 2009 at 3:27 pm

Didn’t realize there were so many…I suppose there are probably a few more miniscule networks out there.

Wordpress is obviously without a doubt the way to go.
Adam Baird´s last blog ..Twitter Ready Blogs: Use Social Proof to Gain More Followers

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crazy blogger August 26, 2009 at 10:21 pm

wordpress is the best blogging platform as it had good featues than others
crazy blogger´s last blog ..How Does WordPress Make Money Online?

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Ricardo Bueno September 1, 2009 at 3:17 pm

My first blog ever was on Xanga back in 2002/2003. Then I moved to Blogger. Then Typepad and Wordpress.

Today, my choices are: 1.) Wordpress.org (though I suggest wordpress.com to the blogger newbie), and 2.) Typepad. I’m not exactly fond of the other choices… But that’s just me.
Ricardo Bueno´s last blog ..Social Media Addiction Rap + 6 Social Media Productivity Tips

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Annabel Candy September 2, 2009 at 6:36 am

I never knew there were so many options! I started on blogger then changed to wordpress.com because I heard the stats were better. Now I have my own domain name too. There’s still lots to learn and I’m lucky my husband’s a computer boffin so he’s helped me set up things like google analytics. I know I could have done it myself but it would have taken me four times as long!

Hey, thanks for the offer to review my site. I’d love that or any advice you can give me on getting more readers.

Also I have a question about condron.us and alphainventions.com I wonder if your other readers have heard of or visit these sites? What do you think of them as a way of getting readers? Worthwhile submitting to five times a day or better off not?

Thanks for all your handy hints!

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Seth September 2, 2009 at 8:18 am

Yes… There are even more options that I did not list. Regarding the traffic exchanges I would not use them. The traffic coming from their only inflates your stats but offers no real value to your blog. 99% of Traffic exchanges are never seen so it would be a waste to spend time filling up your server with useless traffic. It is always tempting though to see the stats rise!

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Web Address September 3, 2009 at 2:40 pm

Great post! Out of all, i still love word press, WordPress is amazing, you can do so much with such simplicity!
Wordpress with all in one SEO plugin with a site map plug in with plus tags with pings make it better from an SEO perspective.
Web Address´s last blog ..Hello world!

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How to Start a Blog December 21, 2009 at 1:16 am

I definitely have to say – a paid, self-hosted blog is the way to go. It is always annoying having to tell your friends “yea, my blog is at …blogspot.com or …wordpress.com”. It really isn’t that impressive if you can’t OWN your blog.

I have setup well over 30 blogs by now and have gone through the technical setup process so many times I could do it in my sleep : ). If you would like me to set it up for ya, I do it for free.

Happy Blogging!
– John
How to Start a Blog´s last blog ..How To Start A Blog

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Alison Moore Smith February 24, 2010 at 8:52 pm

Very good list, here. Good rundown.

I’m a WordPress.org fan. Love them and use the CMS on all my sites — even the nonblog sites now. Great organizational tool.
Alison Moore Smith´s last blog ..Start a New Blog in 1 Week

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Nimit Kashyap March 1, 2010 at 3:55 am

It was a good read, my favorite is wordpress…i have also written a post about
how to start a blog that is about creating a self hosted blog.

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crazyblogger May 28, 2010 at 7:59 am

Wordpress is the best out there. I have tried blogger (way less control in hand) and Windows live space (close to zero control and functionality). I am using wordpress self hosted blog and am confident that on other blogging platform is even close to wordpress.

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SEO München July 3, 2010 at 10:44 am

I never thought that there were many blogging platforms out there, maybe because I am satisfied with using blogger and wordpress as my blog platform. But thanks a lot for sharing them with us, I’ll try to check each blog to see its pros and cons.

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The EXEcutor010 September 1, 2010 at 2:59 pm

Hey, and what about trying to start with something smaller, like microblogging that will teach you, how to write, what to write, how to behave.
It’s just, I’ve started using Daileez.com and stress about posting something new that other guys might find dumb is going to be history.
I know it’s a bit offtopic, but there are so many blogs, which are just not worth the web space…

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