A blog is essentially a specialized web page. Blogs typically provide easy updating, can have multiple "authors", and are free. They're actually set up to be more of an "online diary", but by properly configuring them, you can create a fairly "clean-looking" web page.
Advantages Of Using A Blog
- Low Cost - They're currently FREE from Google (blogger.com).
- Easy To Update Immediately- To make changes on a blog web page, you can do it YOURSELF, and you can do it RIGHT AWAY, at no cost -- instead of having to send a "change request" to someone else and waiting until they can get to it, then getting a bill.
- A blog is easy to update because it's almost like sending an email -- except after you finish editing, you click the 'Publish' button for a blog, instead of the 'Send' button as you would with email.
- Access Anywhere - Since blogs are updated using a web page, you can access and update them from any computer, using any operating system, Windows, Mac, or Linux.
- Photos - When you upload a photo, it displays relatively small so telephone dial-up users can "load" it, but it will display full-size if a user clicks on it. . . . . As an EXAMPLE, click on the following photo (your "Back" button should return you to this page).
- Multiple Users - If necessary, you can give access to multiple users. You can even configure the blog so that a particular user will have "permission" to edit only 1 page, but cannot modify the rest of the blog.
- Offline - You can use the "save as draft" option to "unpublish" a page and take it "offline". The contents will be hidden to the public, but will be safe until you "publish" it again.
- You can use blogs in combination with "standard" web pages, either on the 'front-end' or the 'back-end'. For example, the Brown Library's main web page is done with DreamWeaver by a professional webmaster, but the 'Services' -> 'SeniorNet' path takes you to the SusquehannaSeniorNet.org blog, which SeniorNet staff can update without disturbing the Library's main site.
- You cannot create as fancy a web page using a blog, compared to what can be created by hiring a professional web designer using a professional web page program like Dreamweaver or GoLive or similar.
- You can only do only simple formatting; you cannot have tables, or links to the middle of the page.
- A blog can become cumbersome if you're trying to build a really large website.
- Not as easy to "back up" as web site that resides on your hard drive. (I periodically save the whole blog as a PDF file.)
Much more information is available on Google's Blogger Help Section.
