Blogs as Websites

I am noticing that more and more people are using blogs as websites. Avoiding website domain name and hosting charges is perhaps one reason. Ease of publishing is likely another. If all someone wants to do is post a few pictures, write about themselves, and link to other sites, everything you need is pretty much there. Blogs are also handy for organizations promoting a time-limited event. Why go through the hassle of setting up a website for something that is going to come and go within a few months? For example, the Edmonton Anarchist Book Fair has set up a website on Blogger, for their event coming up in September.

LiveJournal Functions

In the past few weeks LiveJournal has come up with some added functionality. Users can now have a control bar at the top of the screen whenever logged in, making navigation a lot easier. The My LiveJournal section has also been spiffed up with direct links to posting and Friends' pages, for example.

Movement At MySpace

I've been putting some work into my MySpace pages. I am finding that MySpace is where I am doing the most serious networking and connecting. It's probably a numbers thing -- millions of users.

You Tube

I got a mini DV camcorder last month, and have been looking for a place to host my vids without taking up all my space and badwidth at my websites. You Tube is the solution I settled upon. It is like a video version of MySpace. Videos have to be maximum ten minutes and 100 Megs. Once uploaded, the file is converted into Flash and streams from the site. You are given a direct link to the file, as well as the coding to embed it into your existing website. Of course it has the usual user agreement that the site can use your work for whatever it wants, but even still this is not a bad deal. Here is what I have done so far.

Living's Sanctuary at Piczo

At the request of some of my friends who are using Piczo, I decided to check it out in more detail and set up a small page of my own. I tried to go for a consistent look and feel throughout the site. Here it is: Living's Sanctuary.

Video Blogging

I've been thinking a lot about video blogging. MySpace includes sections for vids now. Video blogging is a lot more personal in that the viewer is not only hearing what the person says, but also seeing the blogger. Someone has to be very comfortable with this medium in order to go for it. I am considering starting up a video blog, and am not sure if I will put it on MySpace or just plunk it onto one of my existing websites.

My Life of Travel

I just found out about My Life of Travel. It is a portal for people to create travel blogs. This is one of those cases where there is strength in numbers, as this site creates a community for travel bloggers. Readers can view blogs by travel destination or user. Blogs include maps, as well as entries and photos.

Piczo

Some of my friends are building their own website using Piczo. They are easy to build, picture-based sites. Looking through the information, it seems to be geared towards younger people. However, the same could be said of MySpace, where more and more older folks (25+) are getting in the game.

MSN Spaces

I started playing around with MSN Spaces this afternoon. I forgot I even had one -- I last wrote a blog entry almost a year ago, and that was only as an introduction. I find the layout a bit confusing, but MSN Spaces is quite popular with some on the blogging scene.