Hari's Corner

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Blog hosting services

Filed under: Internet and Blogging by Hari
Posted on Mon, Oct 31, 2005 at 08:13 IST (last updated: Wed, Jul 16, 2008 @ 20:34 IST)

I have always been interested in digging for interesting blogs on blogspot.com and one thing which struck me was how useful the random/pseudo-random "next blog" feature is (when you neglect the occasional spam blog that you come across). It seems to, in a sense, connect so many blogs together and gives a sense of community to the whole blogging business. Another fact is that many bloggers with the blogspot.com address seem to group together with other blogspot users to form "clubs" within themselves. They comment on each other's blogs, feed on each other's blogging talents and thrive on a potentially large audience for their writings. It is a fascinating phenomenon of the blogosphere that so many thousands of people have a medium of self-expression which actually attracts like-minded people to form such social networks. But since I'm hosted on my own site, I have always felt a little bit left out of the mainstream blogging world as represented by blogspot.com.

Before I created my blog, I was aware of blogspot.com. So what prompted me to create my own blog with Wordpress rather than getting my blog hosted on a free blog hosting service? I would say two factors: one was that I had my own web host. I had no reason to look beyond this. Secondly, I was quite uncomfortable with the idea that (theoritically) one day somebody could just shut down the free hosting website and I would be in no position to retrieve my writings. Highly improbable, I know, but it is a kind of psychological feeling of insecurity that you are not in control under such circumstances which influences such decisions. Having decided to host my own blog, at first I was seriously considering using bBlog until somebody on LinuxQuestions.org recommended WordPress as an excellent personal publishing tool. I haven't looked back since. After all, why would I want to host my blog on somebody else's property when I can do the same with much more control and power on my own web space? The fact that I can take regular backups of the database at whatever time I want makes me feel that much more secure.

This is not to say that blogspot is bad or anything. I really think that blogspot has really helped in making blogging a mainstream phenomenon, easily accessible to everybody who is connected. Being taken over by google has also given it a kind of security. In fact, if anything, free blog hosting services seem to be the trend today. You can now own a WordPress blog without your own web hosting space at www.wordpress.com. At present though, it seems to be invitation-only for users of Flock, the new Mozilla-based web browser on the block. But it just shows that the concept of free blog hosting is really taking off in a big way. It just remains to be seen how many of the free services can sustain themselves over the years with a growing number of bloggers adding more and more load on their servers.

6 comment(s)

  1. Hmm. I agree with what you are saying about the free service closing down. That's not going to happen to blogger/blogspot for two reasons: 1) they are WAY too well known- being famous and owned by google. 2) advertising revenue... they make a killing at google. even if it does happen, I have set blogger to email me my posts... ooh. that's at gmail though... :) The email thing is more for protecting my blog from ME rather than google dying. I agree about the social network thing- but "next blog" has nothing to do with it- it's like a randomised tv remote. You find a blog you like, link to it. They see an increase in traffic from YOUR site- they might link to you. Commenting is the same deal. So then you have a group of blogs you like and try to read and comment on.

    Comment by titanium_geek (visitor) on Mon, Oct 31, 2005 @ 19:58 IST #
  2. Titanium, thanks for dropping by here. Yes, I know that blogger won't close down anytime in the forseeable future. That's why I added the "theoritically" part. My point was that it was a psychological feeling of not being in "control" if you can relate to that. However, your idea of getting your posts e-mailed to you is a good one. I'd also save a copy off-line if I can especially with what you consider your best quality articles.

    Comment by hari (blog owner) on Mon, Oct 31, 2005 @ 20:19 IST #
  3. I don't like Blogger, and like you, prefer to own control of my own domain in cyberspace. The fine print in Blogger was enough to scare me away.Aloha,Jeff

    Comment by Jeff Watson (visitor) on Wed, Nov 2, 2005 @ 08:03 IST #
  4. Jeff, thanks for dropping by with your comments. I haven't read the fine print of Blogger, but I will now that you've mentioned it.

    Comment by hari (blog owner) on Wed, Nov 2, 2005 @ 08:23 IST #
  5. I feel it is unlikely that Google will ever shutdown blogspot or make it "not free anymore". Since google gets huge income from ads placed in these blogs (by blog owners) finance takes care for itself...Further, there also you can host the blog on your own domain while you use blogger templates and features...

    Comment by Shrinidhi Hande (visitor) on Mon, Aug 27, 2007 @ 12:33 IST #
  6. But if you own your own host or domain you can easily get WordPress which I feel is better than Blogger.Also you can get a free hosted WordPress blog at http://www.wordpress.comNevertheless I would never trust a third party blog service because they have full control over your content and if somebody feels that your content is objectionable it can be deleted at any time (even though the chances of that happening is highly unlikely. With a self-hosting blog, you have control over content and the database and you can take backups.

    Comment by hari (blog owner) on Mon, Aug 27, 2007 @ 12:42 IST #

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