Blogging is something I really enjoy and yet I don’t do nearly enough of it.  Many things keep me from blogging: not thinking I have much of interest to actually blog about, not being sure that anyone actually reads my posts, and the big one, not being really sure what platform is really the best for blogging.  As I think about that last one, the actual platform, I realize that I have spent way way too much time pondering this question.  I’ve also tried just about every blogging solution I know of in the hopes of finding the perfect solution, one that has all the features I could possibly want while also being accessible and easy for readers to interact with.  Because I feel blogging is more than just the sharing of information, it’s an opportunity for dialog — discussion — and for all, reader and author alike, to learn from one another.  

 

WordPress has long been my favorite blogging platform.  It’s stable, it’s been around forever, many of the largest sites on the net are powered by it, it’s free, and the community has put in a tremendous amount of effort into its accessibility.  On the flip-side, WordPress requires a bit of maintaining and updating, there are frequent updates that address security vulnerabilities, because it’s so powerful and flexible the dashboard can be a bit daunting, and sometimes it’s difficult to make customizations to layout and design unless one possesses more knowledge than what I possess.  

Medium is a really neat service and I see more and more people using it.  On the plus side, Medium handles all the back-end stuff, the author need only log in and write.  There are limits though to Medium functionality, it doesn’t support plugins, they don’t host audio, readers need a Medium account in order to comment, accessibility is improving but there are definite gaps.

Micro.blog is another really neat platform.  The thing I love about Micro.blog is that it’s possible to aggregate feeds from a number of services into one place.  Users of the service can also comment on and mention one another.  There are lots of really cool aspects to Micro.blog, but … it does not support commenting on posts directly other than mentions from other Micro.blog users; think expanded Twitter-like functionality.  Micro.blog also does not support plugins, does not really allow for category-based organization (at least not as of the last time I tried it), and limits the amount of audio and video that can be hosted.  I really want to love Micro.blog as I love the concepts behind it, but I just really want it to have some additional features.

 

And so in my quest to find the perfect blogging platform, I’ve lost sight of the reason behind it, blogging.  And so as I think about more topics about which I might blog, I’m curious what platforms people out there prefer?  Which do you find easiest to use, what features make for a better experience either as a blogger, or reader?