Every now and again, I tend to grow tired with blogging, or a particular platform, or just the nature of having an online presence. A facebook page is great is some ways, but limited to certain people...and if you can't get certain people on facebook, i.e. family, than it can't do everything you would want. Some dissatisfaction as of late with Twitter, not the use of it as much as being limited to 140 characters, caused me to have another existential blog "crisis" and do some searching and testing of other platforms. Some thoughts...
Twitter. I really like Twitter, particularly the ability to use my phone with it, providing short and quick updates on things I'm doing. It really is a great service, but sometimes I want more than just a 140 characters. And sometimes I want pictures as well.
Tumblr. Discovered this over the weekend. Nice site, can use your phone to update just like Twitter, but limited to those text messages at about 140 characters as well. You can however, do longer posts from the website, and you can upload pictures, even sent directly from your phone. But it seems like there is a built in limitation on having more than one picture in a post, which kind of stinks. Also, there is no real framework for social networking on the site...you can follow similar to Twitter, but no one can comment unless you edit the template code, which is okay. I like tinkering with that stuff from time to time, but I guess I just wish the nuts and bolts of a site are set, and I am just playing around with silly little add-ons.
Blogger. I have had blogger account for awhile (Google), and have had a blog address, just never really used it to recently. You can also provide the quick updates via a text message to the blogger blog, as well as the obligatory longer post from time to time. Its not limited to one picture in a post, which is nice. And I also get to play around with the template code as much or as little as I want. All very good things. But its new, and it could mean leaving behind this Wordpress blog.
Wordpress. I've been at this wordpress address for almost three years now. This will be the 160th post. Its a lot of history that carries some weight with me. I love the way it keeps tracks of stats, and it has a great variety of templates to choose from. However, I have yet to figure out an easy way to text updates to Wordpress for posting on the blog. I've tried several things through their FAQ section, but it hasn't worked for one reason or another. I also cannot tinker with the template code without upgrading...and I'm not into paying money for something like this. But I've been here for 33 months or so...hard to forget that.
So, that is the trivial thing taking up space in my brain for the last few days and today, and probably for the next few days. Wanting a platform that will be friendly and easy for my family to see is probably the most important thing. A simple website for my mom to visit, for them to see random text messages of what I am doing, pictures of events, etc., things to keep them more informed. I think they would enjoy that, as would I. So the handwringing continues. As the links show, I created sites at Tumblr and Blogger to play around with (can't know how easy or good something is until you try it for awhile, right?), and I may end up at one or another permanently, I don't know. While Wordpress has the history, a clean break can sometimes be a good thing. Thoughts?
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