Recommendations on Choosing a Blogging Platform

If you are thinking about starting a blog to promote your business brand or your personal brand, a few shortcuts for choosing a platform. Firstly, it is really true that what matters is the content not the visual presentation of your blog. Indeed if you want an automobile, all of them will drive you to your destination but we humans tend to get attached or we crave a particular model. So let’s try to sort it out.

Blogger: was the first platform to bring publishing to the masses. It was acquired by Google and remains the default platform with full support of the Internet giant.

Pros: Easy to use, integrates with your Google account, clean graphic design and themes. Could be hosted on blogspot by Google or self hosted. Readable text rendering.
Cons: Because of the enormous reach of this platform out of the box features are somewhat limited. I think Blogger comments are clunky (you can install third party comments). Typical Blogger themes look tired today.

Drupal: A relatively new and complete CMS (Content Management System) that also include a robust blogging component.

Pros: Unmatched set of advanced features.
Cons: Resource hungry, could be only properly hosted on a VPS (virtual private server), expensive to maintain and design. There is a very limited choice of half decent themes (graphic templates) available out of the box. Drupal community (like Linux or Apple community to a certain degree) is somewhat of a cult.

Movable Type: is the original blogging platform. Great for a multiuser blog, nice set of advance features.

Pros: This might be my personal observation but Movable Type renders text better that any other platform and it is all about the text.
Cons: A tad complicated to set up. Because MT was late to the opens source party, there is very small number of plugins available, this remains MTs most severe limitation. Also poor selection of themes.

TypePad: is a Movable Type platform for the masses. They will host your blog and just like with the other turnkey platforms, set of feature and more importantly control over your blog is limited. There is a charge for the service. A lot of people are using TypePad, I don’t really know why.

WordPress: is the default professional blogging platform on the internet today, requires some (minimal) technical knowledge to set up.

Cons: This is my very personal con, I have found that often text is poorly rendered in WP, certainly depending on a theme.
Pros: There is a tremendous selection of themes, adding functionality to the platform. Unmatched number of plugins contributed by the enormous opens source community. Meshes beautifully with SEO (search engine optimization).

WordPress.com: AKA Automatic, similarly to TypePad (Movable Type) this is a turnkey WordPress platform. It charges fees for advance features, etc. My personal recommendation – if you feel intimidated by technical challenges of Word Press or Movable Type, why use a platform that chokes features to charge you for using them? Its like a cell phone locked by a cell phone company. Again, if you feel intimidated – use Blogger.

Finally, if you what to publish something quickly there is Tumblr or Posterous. Actually I know some famous and savvy people who use Posterous, it is pretty neat.

If you have a specific question about any of the platforms or would like me to expand on the brief notes (or platforms not mentioned in the post, like Joomla or Living Journal), do not hesitate to ask me.