I got this e-mail last night:
Hi Alex,
I’m interested in getting a blog started but I don’t know much about them, their capabilities, etc. Is there a primer you could recommend? What are the benefits of a blog over an official site? I plan on including drawings eventually…political caricatures, etc. Will a blog be robust enough to handle small sketches?
I’d appreciate your feedback and should include that I enjoy your site here (even if I don’t quite understand it all….)
and thought it might make an interesting blog post. Generally, answering questions like this ain’t my bag, but I thought I’d give it a shot since I’ve been thinking a little on the subject anyway.
First of all, I don’t think that you need to choose to have a blog or an official site (whatever an official site is). Using my site as an example, the blog can be part of the site. In my case, the ease of updating the blog has probably contributed to my neglect of other areas of my site. This, among other reasons, is why I’m planning to convert my entire site to run on WordPress (when I get some time).
A blog can be anything you want. It can contain drawings, photos, diagrams for taking over the world, etc. A blog engine gives you an automated system you can use to publish content. That’s it. What you publish and how you use it is totally up to you. I posted Tips for New Bloggers a little while back. This has some advice for what to do once you start blogging.
I’m obviously a big fan of WordPress and I’ve been very happy running my blog on it. Version 1.3 is looking really nice and I’m building a new site with it now; a site that likely won’t even have a blog.
If you’d like to get started with a WordPress blog, make sure to check out the Support Forums and information in the Wiki. Here are some pages of note:
Well, I’m not sure if I answered the original questions or not, but hopefully this information will be of use to someone.