Looking for Free Blogs and blogging

Reasons to look at and for blogs

Many people may like Stephanie Joy traverse the interwebs, going from one place to another, stepping lightly through the heady opinions, rockets whizzing here and there;
seeking out meaningful additions to their thought-life. This may sometimes bring challenges and give them to

find gems among the pebbles, sifting stories like sand on the beach; {Story-telling}

When lingering on that worldwide web people encounter opinions they are able to bear or not. Some also make an art out of it to break down others or to spread false messages. We can either

avoid the flashy lightning storms of gossip and brilliance; daintily sample the creativity of other people, perhaps to copy; preserve links for later perusal, and remembering a friend, send her the same; {Story-telling}

The blogs those people visit are not always the flashiest, or the best designed. Though several web-writers may look for ways to get a very fancy website. Is it not nicer for the visitors to find some flashy colours and pictures? What does attract them to have a further look at a website? for sure when it does not look nice they quickly shall click it away and will not bother to have a further look at it.

When they encounter a blog, writing about them, probably they shall see what they write about them and would like to react, when certain atrocities are written about them. For me it is the same and as such the last few weeks I was confronted several times with people telling lies about the Christadelphians and saying to their public I am a hater of God and a hater of Jesus.

When, being accused of not loving Jesus, I wanted to react to such untrue sayings, I was not given a chance to defend myself and because according to them I belonged to a sect, was asked to leave their site. Being silenced that way no opportunity was given to defend myself publicly, so being stepped on my toes, I did find I had to put a defending voice about my and my brethren their love for Jesus on the net.

Different ways to blog

To give a positive voice about our love for Jesus I tried to find an other website or blog system than WordPress with more artistic possibilities and also to reach perhaps some other viewers, because I with my previous experience noticed that a lot of amount of viewers to catch depends also a lot on the sort of website. this was made very clear when I transferred some blogs from Multiply to WordPress. Even without adding any post, we saw the amount of visitors rise enormously. (If I would have known what I found out with the analytics by WordPress I would have made the transfer much sooner.)

C4All on Overblog

OverBlog that believes that because people all see the world in their own, unique way, they each have something special to offer the rest of us, I first did not notice. They say:

With the rise of the Internet, the barriers that kept us from accessing information came crashing down. And today, we can all share our opinions, our passions and our knowledge. As long as we have a tool that lets us do it!

Many tools

There may be many tools, but I found out that of those many are not useful or not at all practical.

Perhaps Jon Russell his list of The 15 best blogging and publishing platforms on the Internet today. Which one is for you? may be worth looking at.

I agree with his first and second choice:

1. WordPress (WordPress.com + WordPress.org ) which has has two options: a freemium hosted service that provides .wordpress.com domains or pay to use your own domain — and includes limited customization. Or the completey free .org version which allows for you to host WordPress on your own servers with much more control, edit themes to your hearts content, hack code and add as many WordPress plugins as you wish.

For not such technical guys like me it may perhaps leave you with not so many options to make it standard with different pictorial settings.

It is very easy to place pictures and links in articles, with good results. This I must say does not always seem to work with other systems I tried.

On 2 comes an other favourite of mine: Blogger, where you also can customize with new backgrounds and layouts easily. Unsurprisingly, the platform is hardwired into Google’s AdSense advertising program (which according thenextweb.com might make the average blogger enough money for a cup of coffee each month) and other Google services like Google+ (for comments) and Feedburner (for RSS distribution) are easily configured.

I also noticed that the Google+ much easier shows up in the search results when “Googleing”.

Christadelphians on Tumbler, 11 February 2015

Though Tumblr may have a strong community of users, much like Twitter or Facebook, thanks to the ease in which other users’ content can be reblogged to their Tumblr account it is best for pictorial material and for placing automatic shortcuts to articles presented on several own blogs. Very useful for that. That also makes it a different kind of platform to the likes of WordPress, and users — particularly of the younger generation — tend to turn to Tumblr blogs to curate items that they like rather than produce their own content.

To be honest I look at tumblr more as a social network element than a blog and having it more in that way getting more attention from unconnected people than with Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.

What is important by blogging, I think is also to give linked content. Those systems which do not seem to work for sending people to other sites or articles, because their links do not work, like Medium.com, Wix.com, and Mozello which even had all my work destroyed after a few hours after I tried to present its publication. When such systems have a  deficiency or lack of customization and some content discovery issues, for writers, I would say to leave them.

Those looking at or only being a Journal like Penzo and svbtle.com are perhaps good for draft works-in-progress but not to present various texts and attractive material.

Not to trick your readers in

some blogsystems did not seem kosher, having my anti-virus scanner giving me a treath warning for malware and phishing. A phishing website or message trying to trick you or anybody into revealing personal information by appearing to be from a legitimate source, such as a provider for blog services, social network, or even Google we do not want. If you receive a suspicious message, always remember not to provide the information requested. For Weebly I want to warn you and other sites I do not mention, because they do not need any ‘advertising’.

Telling stories

As a platform for showcasing knowledge, bloggers that are seeking to tell stories or impart wisdom about particular topics may find Quora useful. Posts can be categorized using Quora tags — to make them searchable — and, with a little luck and the right content, they can become visible and widely shared. {Quora: Quora.com}

There are enough people around wanting to tell a simple story, real people, sharing elements of real life. They are about people first and theme second. they do not want to sell anything perhaps, except themselves. Some of them want to make of their own life experience and sharing it with others. Some look for adventure and exploration on the internet. Others want to have some influence on others.

Quora blogs are interesting for influencers, those seeking to elevate their status or others wanting to tap into the Quora community. That makes it better suited as a secondary of tertiary blog. {Quora: Quora.com}

Sharing

Is it

Putting one’s life on display – at least, parts of it – and telling stories for strangers. {Story-telling}

you want to do?

Is it your inner desire for story or for having satisfaction that what you want to tell shall be heard by some one, somewhere in the world?

Probably you shall be able to find some one who shall like your stories. Most love to hear or love to read good stories.

And stories need a teller and a listener – they are an act of sharing by necessity. {Story-telling}

Stories to share is not so difficult with modern technology. But real stories and matters of importance are perhaps more difficult to share. worldy subjects can sell easy but spiritual and religious matters shall be much more difficult.

In case the blogging that you love to read and seek to write yourself is the everyday story-telling variety, than perhaps you might find further opportunities with Postach.io, Google+, Facebook Notes, SETT,  Ghost,  Squarespace, Typepad, Posthaven, LinkedIn, Influencers and even The fallen heroes.

Getting ready

Because I have looked and tried several possibilities my self, I taught it perhaps useful to share my experiences with you. I looked at the systems from the point of view of a user and not as a technician. You may find other views from it-people and computer magazines, but I do hope this review was also helpful.Over the last few years I’ve tried different systems and different ways to reach people. Problem by me is that I do not have to sell anything in which people are interested. I am also not a salesman. I am also not a professional writer. I can only speak about the things in which I do believe and of which I do find it worth fighting for.One such thing worth fighting for or going for is the heralding of Good Tidings. There is a high need of bringing the Gospel to as many as possible. To also show the adversaries that I and my fellow brethren do love Jesus I also started now a new blog focusing on the Messiah, our saviour who is there for everybody but only has to be noticed, to believed and to be followed, to get a better life in the future.

I can only be happy when people would come along, like reading what I wrote here and there, and would not mind returning to find new writings.

And I would perhaps also say, though I would love to see some more readers:

Even if it’s just three faithful readers most days (hi …!), I appreciate you taking the time to share these stories with me. Thanks for reading, dear kindred spirit. {Story-telling}

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Additional literature:

1. Blogging service shootout: Blogger vs. WordPress
2. Site builder shootout: Drupal vs. Joomla vs. WordPress
3. How to Launch a Self-Hosted WordPress Blog in 20 Minutes or Less
4. A small company of Jesus’ footstep follower
5. Those who call the Christadelphians a cult
6. Sects – why so many
7. Subcutaneous power for humanity 5 Loneliness, Virtual and real friends
8. Evangelisation, local preaching opposite overseas evangelism
9. Those who love Jesus
10. A beginning with many false starts
11. Starting block

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