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jzhang172

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I use sanriotown.com

I started when I was fifteen. I felt like blogging, so I tried to think of a site that I could use, but I guess I didn't want to use what everyone else was using... I guess because they didn't appeal to me. I'm not sure how I found this site, but it's very cute and has many features.

At first, I tried to blog twice a month, and I did follow this pattern for a while. I think it was when I went away for summer vacation that I stopped. Also I guess life? got in the way...

So, now I just try to post when I can, like when something's going on. My style has kind of developed... Still developing I guess, and the content has evolved a bit as well.

I'm not sure if it's better than others because I haven't tried others. But I think I would like to try some others, like ameba... I don't really have the time to make my own layouts, so this is probably another reason I like sanriotown, because they have a few selections for layouts.

I also have a tumblr, but I don't think of it as a blogging site, just a media board, really.

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Guest LunaUlna

I use Xanga.

Yes, it's old school, but I've been using the same blog for eight years now, so I don't intend on switching over to any other site. Anyway, the only people that ever visit it now are my closest friends, and since most of the blog entries are pretty personal, I would prefer to keep it that way.

I've tried using Blogspot, but it just feels too unfamiliar... Plus, I don't really know how to change the layout for it, and I don't have a gmail account either.

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I use Xanga.

Yes, it's old school, but I've been using the same blog for eight years now, so I don't intend on switching over to any other site. Anyway, the only people that ever visit it now are my closest friends, and since most of the blog entries are pretty personal, I would prefer to keep it that way.

I've tried using Blogspot, but it just feels too unfamiliar... Plus, I don't really know how to change the layout for it, and I don't have a gmail account either.

I feel you on that.  Xanga is very personable, I just made one two days ago, and I love it...I knew about it since middle school and never really got into it.  It's funny, I'm finding myself going back into things I knew about back then.

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I'd suggest: Blogger, and Wordpress.

With the new user interface updates, Blogger is really easy for anyone to start up and begin blogging right away. I'd definitely recommend it if you are new to blogging and things like coding, html and css customizing. However, many people would also suggest Wordpress as a great blogging platform because it's easy to customize as well. 

As a 2-year Blogger user, blogger may have had a couple problems especially regarding issues with their widgets, help section and mobile blogging. However, things have much improved and Blogger is pretty synonymous with Wordpress. That's not to say I sometimes wish I wasn't so lazy and moved my blog to Wordpress. The extensive extras you can add to your blog is amazing, and so easy to work with. I may have not tinkered with the CSS and HTML of it before, but from all my friends who do, they say it's insanely easier and a lot less complicated than Blogger. Hope that helps, if only a little bit :)

Regarding tumblr... lol I practically do nothing but reblog and like posts so I don't think I'm qualified to say anything about that haha~ There's also livejournal, but I barely go on enough to say anything about that too. Hope that opens up more possibilities :)

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I currently use Blogger. I think it's the easiest blogging system to use.

I've tried many different sites: Wordpress, Xanga, Tumblr, Naver, Cyworld, Cutenews and of course, Livejournal. They all have their merits and demerits, which is why eventually I didn't stick with them.

Wordpress: It is indeed very comprehensive because it has many widgets and is easy to manipulate using their system. The whole system looks professional and is personalised. You can really add anything to any part of the blog because there are SO many widgets around. However, I'm not a coding expert. I don't understand Javascript and other programming codes, so it's not easy for me to change the layouts. Minor edits are possible but when it comes to crafting an entire new layout to suit my personal taste, things just get too tough for me to handle. I'm really not good at coding but I like to change the layout of my blogs. I prefer to have my blog layout designed exactly the way I want it to look, yet hiring someone else to do the job is too expensive because I change my layout every six months or so. Thus, in the end, I still decided to use an interface that offers a wider variety of easily customisable layouts. And that's how I switched to...

Livejournal: Honestly, I stuck with LJ for quite some time. There are many (and I really mean, MANY) Livejournal communities around that offers a wide array of layouts. My layout-changing fetish is satisfied. Also, another good thing about Livejournal is that there are numerous communities around, i.e. there are dozens of communities that feature any kind of interest. I really mean, any kind! (Those that I seached, anyway.) I can just click 'Watch this community' and their updates will ALL reflect on my 'Friends' page, which is visible on my own blog. Therefore navigation and stalking becomes easy. In addition, the commenting system is efficient and easy to use. It is truly a wonderful fangirl haven. Moreover, you can set the visibility of EACH post: public, friends-only (meaning only people who added you as a friend can view such posts) or private (visible only to you), so it's quite a good place to record ALL kinds of events. However, the thing about Livejournal is that it doesn't have so many widgets, unlike Wordpress. Most of the things you add on your layout has to be done through the Cascading Style Sheet (CSS). That's quite troublesome, and once again, it's about coding. When the CSS is actually the primary 'styling agent' of the entire layout, of course we have to be very proficient with its properties and functions. That's still quite manageable, as compared to Javascript and other computer/Internet codes. Yet, I find it rather inconvenient to change the entire layout according to my own whims and fancies. But overall, Livejournal is highly recommended for lazy bloggers who don't have that much time on hand to sort their information page by page and prefer to just use 'Post an Entry' then search for it again through tags. Livejournal is good.

Xanga: Pretty old school. Same layout customising problems but this isn't very effective for active bloggers like me who have no life. (Oh the irony~) Actually I think it's good for those who just want to record their daily stuff and not intend to look back some time later to recall past events. I think it's suitable for people who just intend to smash their keyboard to vent and then forget about everything later. In fact, I didn't really enjoy using Xanga a lot. Apart from layout customisation, there aren't many other features.

Tumblr: I'd think of this as an enormous, gigantic picture-and-quote sharing community, rather than a blogging interface. Seriously, I think that Tumblr's one of the biggest source of pretty images/photographs -- be it stock or fangirl material -- and relatable quotes. By relatable, I mean those that many agree on. If your intention is to appreciate or (re-)distribute beauty, art, fashion and design on a daily basis on your dashboard rather than to blog about your life, then this is the right place for you. It's actually quite an active site. However, the bad thing about Tumblr is that... I can't seem to find any interesting features that can't be found on any other blogging systems. Or maybe the special feature of Tumblr is its abundance of budding artists and fangirls.

Naver: A Korean blogging system! Same old layout customisation problems (I think I'm just too lazy to learn all that coding, that's why.) There are quite a few merits for this popular blogging site. First, the pretty emoticons. There are too many, and I like them all. The problem I face all the time is how to use as many as I can to decorate each and every post I submit on my blog. Second, adorable characters that you see on Character Map (Windows, not sure about Mac because I don't use it.) are easily available. Third, easy to use. In fact, Naver provides a lot of servives apart from Blogs. When you sign up for a Naver account, you also get an e-mail account. I believe there are a few other freebies but because I actually don't understand Korean, I'm not sure about the full package that we receive. Last, they have quite a few widgets that are actually very practical and useful. An example is the visitor counter, which reveals the popularity of your blog on the sidebar. However, the bad thing about Naver is that... I'm not very sure what's so bad about it. The reason I stopped using it is because I don't understand Korean and more importantly, my friends don't. They can't even read the characters to guess the meaning of certain phrases, so they complain to me that they fail to navigate. Thus, I switched to Blogger, but before that, let's go to...

Cyworld: It's another Korean blogging system. I think it's similar to Naver, but much harder to use. It's practically near impossible for a Korean-illiterate to use it because there are so many 'layers' of security and even the freaking registration was full of obstacles. After so many hurdles, we come to another challenge, which is navigation even around my own blog. Seriously, Cyworld has its very unique blog presentation, which seems like a book. There is also this virtual 'room', which I guess is probably our online 'home'. (Someone enlighten me?) However, we have to spend a lot of money to furnish it and make it pretty: buy furniture, pets, songs, whatever. They're just out to empty our pockets, I think. What an ingenious plan. Too broke for Cyworld.

Cutenews: It's a PHP blogging system that we use on a normal website. I'm not sure about the technical terms but when you buy some webspace or get some free webspace from a webhost, we have to build our pages. After so much difficulties with customising layouts, I decided that I want to craft my layout ENTIRELY. All by myself, because I know exactly what to put in and what not to. So I got some free space. Wow, I've used a whole list of free webhosts, and went around webdesign sites whose webmistresses offered some free space for webhosting (kind souls, I love all of you!!). So instead of Wordpress because I don't know how to install it even, I used Cutenews. The good thing about it is that, well, easy to install and customise. However, you have to type in HTML because the 'Post an Entry' page doesn't offer us options. For example, if we want to bold some text in our blog entry, we have to literally type out the <b> and </b> tags. Thus, I guess you know why eventually I decided to change my blogging system.

And eventually I'm back to where I started out, which is Blogger: Easy to customize because you can find the ENTIRE HTML and CSS on one page, if you use the Classic Template. Easy to post entries. Google Adsense is available for popular Bloggers, so we can earn money while blogging. Also, there are Statistics on the Blogger dashboard so you know about your popularity. I think it suits lazy people like me who can't be bothered to learn Javascript, the details of CSS, etc. Basically, it's enough to know only basic HTML and CSS, and you can code wonderful layouts that you like with Tables and Div layers! Moreover, Blogger has introduced new templates that are... well, not that easy to customise but neat and presentable. The new templates come with widgets -- loads of them for your convenience. However, Blogger's services aren't as extensive as Wordpress'. It also doesn't have vibrant communities like Livejournal. In addition, Tumblr has WAY more artists and poets. Naver has a lot of cute emoticons. YET, among all the blogging systems, I find this most suitable for me.

I think there's no BEST blogging system actually. It depends on what you're looking for when you blog. Is it interest group, easy layout customisation, Art, cute emoticons (lol) or?

Hope this helps. :)

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Guest krystaliu

I don't have a blogspot, but I'm planning to make one soon, since a bunch of my friends who write use that. ^^

I generally use LJ, but because of the changes (agh release 88 ihu - but then i got an app installed :D) I don't know how long I'll be using that. Don't really do much on tumblr except once-in-a-while spazzes of reblogging.

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Blogspot at the moment.

I heard wordpress is better overall, but for me, it wasn't easy as blogspot.

I also tried tumblr, xanga, and several others but..it just didn't click with me.

Customization seemed not as great on other blog sites.

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It just depends on what your blog is all about. I use different blog sites for different purposes. If you're looking for one that's easy to customize, personalize and your blog is personal then I'd say go for Blogger. It's definitely one of the best out there when it comes to customizing. I myself haven't used it in a while, because not a lot of people (that I know) have it and so it's less 'fun' to blog there.

I use Wordpress for personal things, writing about my life and what not because it looks clean and neat and has many different features. Livejournal is for my fanfic/writings, because of the communities there and you can share your work and get/give feedback very easily.

Tumblr isn't really a blogging site in my opinion, more like a Twitter that allows more than 140 characters. But I do love it, because it's great for quotes and pictures speak a lot too. Not to mention crazy reblogs make me smile.

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Guest iPhets

Blogger. I tried Wordpress and didn't really like it..I liked how simple it was though.

The new interface is really nice and easy to use - everything is on one page. If you are new, I would highly recommend it :)

As for Tumblr, its technically a blog..right? But I don't really 'feel' a blog 'vibe' from it. I feel that no one actually bothers going beyond the dashboard and checking out individual blogs..so sometimes posts are missed. I don't really fancy that. Like theninthtrack said, it feels more like a Twitter with more characters, or just a place to share pictures.

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Guest Ichisatsu

Generally I'm not a good blogger however once every while I do post about this and that blush.gif

For now I have Livejournal and Tumblr...

My decision to sign up for LJ was more due to a friend of mine who blogs regularly...However since then I got used to it...Although I wouldn't put LJ among the best 5 blogging sites, it sure enters the best 20 list probably somewhere in the middle...Some features are very convenient - for example changing journal style is quite easy - some rather disappointing...

However in the end LJ pretty much fulfills it's duty...

Tumblr's charm is it's similarity to Twitter with a more wide ranging sharing option...I think it's sharing system covers all important elements of what ppl like to show to the world: quotes, music and videos, photos and pictures, conversations and also text entries...And they are able to in an easy and convenient way...

Also the compact styled "dashboard" and the highly changeable "blog" add a unique feeling to it...

Considering the community, I would say both LJ and Tumblr have their own "people of honor" happy.gif 

LJ has a lot of communities which provide either useful downloads, proper translations or simply fan created stuff which are difficult to gather from other places...

Tumblr is a great source for images and good laughs, plus doesn't require from the user to "follow" a person one reblogs from...

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  • 4 weeks later...
Guest Yishi_x

I used Livejournal for about five years because as another user has said, there are so many different communities there and niches for pretty much every single interest you can think of! Whether it's fanfic, learning a language, display pics, layouts, role playing... LJ will always hold a dear place in my heart.

But these days I've moved onto Blogspot now, simply because it feels more professional. I do miss the tight communities in LJ, but as I'm still new to Blogspot, I hope that I'll be able to get as much out of it as I did from LJ! :)

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