How to: choose the perfect blogging software

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Are you feeling the need to start a blog?

Perhaps you’ve already got an account on Blogger, WordPress.com or LiveJournal but you’re ready to host your own blog.

This Tech Digest how-to guide will help you to decide which of the many pieces of blog software and hosting options is right for you.

I’ll look at:

  1. the pros and cons of the different types of blog hosting available;
  2. the benefits of having your own domain name;
  3. a quick way to narrow down the choice of which blogging software to use;
  4. an overview of the main types of blogging software;
  5. some things to look out for when it comes to choosing a web host for your blog

Head over the jump to start…

WordPressDirect – quick, easy, and spamtacular

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Ever wanted to create your own blog, but you’re far too lazy? WordpressDirect is for you. It’s a third-party site (not affiliated with Wordpress) that will create a blog for you, based on a few search phrases. It’ll then pull content in from the rest of the web, and automatically post it for you. Voila. A blog, with zero effort.

Except that this is the spammiest thing ever created. It’s essentially a make-your-own-spam-blog tool. What’s a spam blog? Well, if you’ve ever run a blog over the years, you’ll know that there are sites out there that flat-out copy your content, word for word, and put up ads next to it. This service does exactly that, at its basic setting. It doesn’t add anything – it’s just making money off other people’s hard work.

So for that reason, I’m not going to link to it. Here’s a link to a far better website instead:

PuppyCam (Original subject of post via Mashable)

Related posts: Spam makes loads of money, apparently | Sir Spamalot – Colin Wells is UK’s most spammed person

Show your CMS preference with the blogger's guide to gang-signs

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Over the weekend Gizmodo ran a feature, showing ‘geek culture’ gang-signs which included Windows, Ubuntu, Linux and Apple signs. But what about gang-signs showing your preferred Content Management System?

Thankfully someone’s put together the blogger’s guide to gang-signs, so when you’re at the next TechCrunch or London Bloggers’ meet-ups, you can throw your hands in the air and align yourself with the Wordpress, Movable Type or Blogtron crew.

Click on the image above…

Facebook gets cross-platform blogging application: Blog It from Six Apart

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Hoping to appeal to high-powered bloggers who own multiple blogs and have a strong presence on Facebook, Six Apart has launched the Blog It application to let users update their blogs and “microblogs” directly from Facebook.

Six Apart are the creators of TypePad, amongst other services, but wanted to create an application that allows a wide range of platforms to be updated. Around a dozen popularw blogging platforms — including WordPress, Movable Type, Vox, and Blogger — can be updated, as well as microblogging services such as Twitter and Pownce…