- Tumblr, Posterous: Great for quick, short posts; perfect for a 365 (a post a day) blog. They are super easy to create (pick a name, pick a theme, GO!) and you can submit posts from your laptop, your email, your phone (audio files, photos, as well as video clips). Hosted by the platform, your URL will look something like: http://robin2go.tumblr.com/ or http://robin2go.posterous.com/.
- Blogger, TypePad, WordPress: More extensive platforms, these provide more options, more themes and, as a result, require more time to set up. Still relatively easy to maintain, with a variety of plug-in widgets that can add functionality and coolness to your blog, these can be hosted by the the platform (again with a URL like http://robin2go.blogspot.com/ or http://robin2go.typepad.com/), although the more serious bloggers may use the option to export to their own domain (http://mywebsite.com).
- The Blogs at Penn State: Every faculty, staff, and student member of the Penn State community gets personal webspace for their own use. The Blogs at Penn State project provides a MovableType platform for your blogging needs. While this is an incredibly powerful platform, the bulk of the heavy lifting is already done for you. All you need to do is pick a name for your blog and a theme. The added bonus, here, is there are templates to take your personal blog space and transform it into an ePortfolio, like mine. Your URL will be a lot longer, but I simply use a personalized URL shortener to make it more convenient for people to remember how to access my portfolio (http://tr.im/robin2go) or just my blog (http://tr.im/renegade). It comes in handy, and makes it easy to connect to my work.
- Keep a short list of ideas for those times when you can’t get to writing the post. I use Evernote (yes, I am a geek) because my iPhone is always with me, and it synchs my notes from my phone to my computers.
- Post links to ideas or sites that inspire you, or make you think about what you’ve read. Sharing resources is a great way to encourage people to visit and connect with your blog.
- Write a response to somebody else’s blog post–but on your blog. If you link to the article itself, then you can let your readers see the original post, and the author can see the track back.
- Take pictures. Post them, and tell us why you are posting. (It was funny; the sky was beautiful; this sign makes no sense). After all, they say a picture is worth a thousand words.
- Ask questions or seek out opinions. Blogging sometimes feels like you’re by yourself at a keyboard. Asking questions can sometimes spur your own mind into action, in addition to gaining input from your audience.
ind Your Community.
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