Blog Web Hosting

Blog Web Hosting Platforms - What Are They?

Blog web hosting platforms are blogs for which all you have to do is sign up and create blog content. With this approach, the blog web hosting is provided as part of the blog account and you neither have to install software nor pay for separate hosting.

Some of the most prominent hosted blogging platforms are:

• Blogger (Google's hosted blogging platform)
• FaceBook (a social networking website with limited blogging available on Facebook Notes)
• LiveJournal (a virtual community with blogs available)
• MySpace (a social networking website with blogs available)
• Skyrock (a social networking website with blogs available)
• TypePad (a hosted blogging service, sister to Movable Type - see below)
• Windows Live Spaces (social networking platform and blogging service, sister to Windows Live Writer - see below)
• Wordpress.com (hosted blogging platform, sister to Wordpress.org - see below) 
• Xanga (hosted blogs of several types - weblogs, photoblogs, video and audioblogs)
• Vox (hosted blogs with social network features

Getting Started with Blog Web Hosting Platforms

Although litte more than a registration may be required to start blogging, there are several items you should check before you sign and blog. Terms of service are vastly different between sites, with important distinctions in the amount of storage, the termination rules, and - perhaps most important - the license to your content.

You should also be aware of set-up time, the editability of template layouts and the number of available templates, whether static pages are available and how they're handled, the statistics packages, the name the blog will have, features and ease of use, and trackbacks. The service may or may not allow you to publish the blog to your server or redirect the blog to your domain of choice.

User-Hosted Blogging Platforms - What Are They?

User hosted blogging platforms are free or purchased software packages that may either simply create blogs or have blogs as part of a larger set of tools (as in a content management system) and are installed on the blog author's server. In early 2009, there are a large number of user-hosted blogging platforms to choose from. They include:

• Apache Roller Weblogger (used for employee blogs at IBM and Sun Microsystems)
• b2evolution (multi-blog publishing system developed from b2/cafelog)
• BLOG: CMS (based on NucleusCMS.org code)
• Blojsom (used as the foundation for Apple's Mac OS X Tiger Server Weblog Server)
• Blosxom  (a self-described "lightweight" weblog application)
• Community Server (collaborative platform including a blog, based on the .Text blog engine)
• DotNetNuke (originally developed from the IBuySpy Workshop)
• Drupal (grew out of a message board and is now described as a content management framework by some)
• Elgg (a social networking platform with blogs among its other features)
• ExpressionEngine (content management system)
• Frog CMS (a content management system ported from Ruby on Rails CMS)
• Habari (a blog engine)
• Jaws (a content management system)
• Joomla (a content management system developed from Mambo)
• Livejournal (a virtual community that includes blogging capability)
• LifeType (blogging platform)
• Movable Type (weblog publishing system)
• Nucleus CMS (blog management software designed with an emphasis on plug-ins)
• Pivot (too for the creation of weblogs as well as other dynamic websites)
• Serendipity (web-based content management system)
• Slash (weblog)
• SPIP (publishing system designed for collaboration and multilingual environments)
• Subtext (blog publishing system)
• Textpattern (content management system)
• Traction TeamPage (blog wiki)
• Typo (blogging engine)
• Typo3 CMS (content management system including blogging)
• Windows Live Writer (Microsoft's desktop blog-publishing app)
• WordPress (blog publishing application developed from b2/cafelog)

Finding Hosting for User-Hosted Platforms

When you look into blog web hosting for a user-hosted blogging platform it's a good idea to choose your blogging software first. This allows you to make sure that the web host you choose meet your blogging software's minimum requirements.

Minimum hosting requirements usually involved one or more of the following:

• a designated minimum CPU
• designated minimum amount of RAM
• a designated minimum amount of disk space for the application and related items, such as your blog content
• the supported operating system(s)
• a designated minimum Perl version
• a designated minimum PHP version
• a designated minimum MySQL version or PostgreSQL version or SQLite
• the ability to host and execute CGI scripts
• the supported web browsers

You will also need an FTP program to load files from your personal computer to your Web server. In some cases, it is necessary to set up a database prior to installing the blogging software.

Some blog software sites, like wordpress.org, for example, have a list of web hosts that they recommend. In cases in which the blog software maker recommends a web host, you may find that the web host has special features, such as one-click installation for that type of blog. We recommend WordPress Tricks for the best one click install.

Besides the specifications and the blog software maker's recommendation, service elements should check before making your decision include:

• disk storage space
• bandwidth
• price
• any freebies (e.g., a free domain name, email accounts, domain forwarding)
• number of databases supported
• number of websites supported
• number of subdomains supported
• set-up costs
• annual commitment
• uptime
• reputation
• reliability
• support