Easy-to-Use Blogging Software

Tweet

Want to start your own online journal? As Anne Stuart points out in "Blogging for Business," it's fast becoming an easy, effective way to connect with customers and establish more of a personality with prospects and clients. But how do you get started? Anne outlines what makes a good business blog in her piece, but you'll need the right technology to jump on the blogging bandwagon.

Writing for the Associated Press, Anick Jesdanun's Internet column "Review: Easy-to-Use Blogging Software" offers a couple of suggestions for the best tools for beginners: Blogger and Moveable Type.

Here's a quick rundown of their features and pricing from Jesdanun's article:

Blogger's Blogspot
Price: Free
Some Useful Features: Automatic wizard that helps you set up quickly; automatic spell checker; automatically archives old posts by date; new postings e-mailed to mailing list for free.
Downside: Exposes the average user to too much HTML -- e.g., when you highlight something to be bolded, you don't see it in bold, you see the code; can't search postings.

Moveable Type's Typepad
Price: Cost begins at $4.95 a month
Some Useful Features: Time-delay feature to have entries show up tomorrow or next week; underline text feature; can add clickable e-mail address; upload images, docs and music files; TrackBack features lets you know when other sites have linked to your blog.
Downside: Exposes user to too much code; need to upgrade to the full Moveable Type software to create mailing lists and for search feature; not always easy to use.

Jesdanun's final verdict (free subscription required to read full article): Start with Blogger until you grow into Moveable Type.