To Blog or Not to Blog

[setfreeoncc]

Or perhaps to do forums? That is the question!

I am looking to do some long distance discipleship with some friends and would like to do it on-line.

Here is what I would like for features:
1. Possibility of embedding video
2. Ability for others to comment on blog/posts and for these comments to be seen by everyone who participates.
3. FREE or as near to free as I can get since I have ZERO budget.
4. Notification features
(Note: Please be patient with this AARPite if she doesn't get the techie lingo down correctly).

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[[Admin] osborn4]

I use Blogger.com (owned by Google) and it has all that for free.

Question on #4. Do you want to be notified when somebody comments or do you want people to be able to notified when you blog?

The first is a feature of blogger. The second would have to be done by RSS feed, from what I've found out.

[sempei13]

Wordpress.com is also good. Additionally, it provides a good upgrade path to the time that you might want have wordpress on your own server.

Paul

[Sysmom]

I've got a blog in WordPress and at Blogger - WordPress is more flexible, Blogger is less technical. I've installed WordPress on a number of sites, as well, I'm a huge fan of it.

deb

[hussra]

Another WordPress fan here - wordpress.com for my blog (when I have something to write about) and using our own install of WordPress for our church site. Very very flexible (including one plugin I ended up writing myself, yikes!).

[WWalker]

I use wordpress as well. You can use it free on wordpress.com or install it on your own server. I have Godaddy hosting and have installed wordpress on multiple domains.
Some of them actually repost - my blog on a few different sites.
Wordpress is very flexible, has tons of free templates to design the look and feel of your site, has tons of plugins and widgets to get it to do just about anything, I can embed youtube or my own videos (in just about any format).

Check out:
www.itsallgods.com
www.ourcalling.org
www.walkerav.com
www.ministrymedia.org
www.Dallasfcpug.org

[setfreeoncc]

Thanks everyone for your imput. I am also on blogger/blogspot.

I should have been more specific. What I would like is for everyone to see comments in response to a blog that are on the same page as the blog itself. IE Not having to click through a comments link to get there. It makes Bible study/discipleship easier if everyone can see other's responses. That way, I won't need to post portions of comments into the next blog and then respond to them. And people can respond to other's comments as well.

For Valentine's Day, my hubby gave me my own domain with GoDaddy hosting. So, I would like to use it for this purpose. I'm still not sure if blogging or a message board would fit this need.

[pwright2]

I think I have read that there is a plugin for wordpress that allows that but it is only available in the installed version, not in wordpress.com.

[Sysmom]

I use WordPress. If you click on the title to the entry, the entire entry AND all the comments are there on one page.

So what I think you're looking for is more of a front page that has *less* information on it, so all you do is click on the discussion of the moment ... to get to the full entry and the comments.

And WordPress can do that. Don't know about the free hosted one at WordPress.com, but if you install it on your own server (which is a snap, by the way) you can configure it to do all sorts of things.

Blogging vs. Forum:

A forum is really for a larger discussion venue, one that is user-driven. CMN doesn't start most of the threads here, the users do. And they could be (and are) about anything.

A Blog is about niche topics, and is author-driven, and users then respond, add to, ask questions, or whatever, about the topic under discussion in that entry.

I'd encourage you to look at WordPress, install it on your web site, and see if you can get it to act like you'd like to. It sounds like it is more of what you're looking for.

It's got the added advantage of being less frightful to people than a forum.

PM me if you need help with the WordPress. There's always some lingo to learn on the learning curve to these things.

deb

[cw4u]

Our youth group uses a blog when they're on tour/mission trip to allow the parents to keep up with what they're doing. It serves as a great bridge between the group and their parents while they're gone. We've received a lot of thanks because of it. We also put a couple picture galleries on the same page as well as some videos, and the parents love it.