Future of blogging platforms and tools. Advice for selecting your blog platform. Course lecture for Aalto University course (Blog Or Die). How to select between building your own website or going inside some social media site or media website?

1. Future of
blogging
platforms
Perttu Tolvanen, Web & CMS Expert
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North Patrol Oy 2013 / 2013-10-21 / for Aalto University

2. Security agency for web projects
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3. Agenda
Technical
definition of a
blog
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Overview to
different tools
and advice to
selecting the
right tool
Future trends of
blogging tools

4. Speaker’s blogging history
• Vierityspalkki.fi, the #1 web design blog in Finland
– Editor-in-chief, ~500 published articles since 2007
– Over 3000 Twitter followers and over 1000 Facebook fans
– Over 20 000 visits per month
• Also other expert blogs and guest articles, eg. http://intranet-ostajanopas.fi
• Latest project:
– Buyer’s Guide to Web Projects: http://www.northpatrol.com/blog/
• Total: Blogging since 2007, published around 700 articles since then
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5. What makes a blog from a technical point of view?
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6. Technical definition of a blog
• Fairly simple content website
• Stream of articles, no hierarchy
between articles
• Articles have tags and/or categories
• Navigation is based on tags/categories
• Readers can comment articles and
comment moderation is a big part of
management duties
• Readers can easily follow the stream
of new content via RSS, email or social
media channels
• Simple content publishing interface
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7. What makes blog different?
• Typical characteristics of blogs:
– New content is added often
– Blogs are interactive, especially
comments add update frequency which
is valued highly by Google
– Blogs link to other blogs and websites
which make them more semanticly rich
for Google for example
• But…
– The web has learned a lot from blogs –
and blogs are not that different
anymore. Why should they then require
different tools?
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8. Overview to tools and advice for selection
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9. Short history of web publishing tools
• ”Web content management systems”
(CMSs) have always focused more to
managing content instead of publishing
content.
• Blogging tools have therefore been able to
differentate because they have been more
focused to easy publishing, comment
moderation capabilities and integration
with social media services.
• And the situation is still the same: Every
CMS in the world can power a world-class
blog, but having a specialized tool just
makes running a blog much more easier.
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Advice: The more integrated the blog is to other websites
of the company the more it makes sense to use the same
CMS for all websites, including blogs. Remember: In the
end this is always a concept design decision!

10. Owning or renting your platform?
• If you are a media company and your
business is selling ”eyeballs” and
managing ads you have to own your
platform (and domain).
• The more commercial your goals are,
the more important it is to own your
platform and have the right the sell
ads and do whatever you want. No
media company can use Google’s or
Facebook’s platform for this reason!
• Remember: Free blogging tools will
never allow bloggers to monetize
their traffic.
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11. Owning or renting your platform?
• If you are a media company and your
business is selling ”eyeballs” and
managing ads you have to own your
platform (and domain).
• The more commercial your goals
are, the more important it is to own
your platform and have the right the
sell ads and do whatever you want.
No media company can use Google’s
or Facebook’s platform for this
reason!
• Remember: Free blogging tools will
never allow bloggers to monetize
their traffic.
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Examples of platform choices of
media companies:
1. Drupal (most common, but
also complex and expensive
to build and maintain)
2. WordPress (for smaller
brands, also getting popular
with bigger brands)
3. Other choices: eg. eZ Publish

12. Owning or renting your platform?
• If your goals are something other
than directly converting your traffic
to money, then you have a lot more
choices.
• For example General Electric has a
popular Tumblr blog that
showcases machines that GE builds:
http://generalelectric.tumblr.com/
• Richard Branson blogs inside
LinkedIn platform and has almost
three million followers.
http://www.linkedin.com/influence
r/204068115-Richard-Branson
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13. Owning or renting your platform?

14. Owning or renting your platform?
Remember: This is typical for
large brands that are not in the
media business. For media
corporations this is pretty
much impossible since they
are in direct competition with
these platforms.

15. Advice for platform selection
1.
If you know from the start that you want to monetize your traffic and you are going after high
traffic you should own your platform from the start.
– 1) Pick a domain and 2) hire a skilled web designer that knows WordPress.
2.
If you want to start cheap, but aim high in the long-term you might choose renting the platform
for the start.
– WordPress.com is an easy way to start a great blog (and you can even use your own domain) and then if
success hits you can move to your own server (WordPress.org version).
– WordPress.com offers a guided transfer option to your own installation and you can also buy redirects from
the old address (if you used yourblogname.wordpress.com option).
3.
If you are just aiming for popularity (person or brand) you might choose going inside some social
media platform.
– Facebook works well for artists and consumer brands. It also has a pretty good ”Follow” system for public
pages. Just be prepared to pay Facebook in the long term – it is a business after all!
– LinkedIn is building the same system for the business world. Richard Branson is one of the first that have been
accepted to the platform. Also many media companies are competing for this same idea. Eg. Kauppalehti.
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16. Advice for managing your own platform
• Be prepared for these:
1. You have to be somewhat technical person to successfully
manage your own blog. Even with good technical support
you have to understand how articles are pushed to social
media services and what each platform update effects to
your publishing system.
2. You have to learn new tools all the time and be able to
coordinate how they work together. This takes time and
it’s away from writing.
3. Success comes slow. You have to be really, really patient.
Running a successful blog platform will require usage of
different tools and understanding how different social media
platforms work.
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17. Advice for selecting a rented platform
• Three big questions:
1. What platform are your most potential readers using right
now? Does that platform offer blogging tools?
2. Which platform makes following and reading blogs easiest for
the reader?
3. Which platform makes sharing and commenting most
influential and meaningful for the reader?
And are you going for traffic or interactivity? Eg. YouTube or
Instagram might be a good choice for traffic, but Facebook is
great for interactivity.
And can you escape the platform if something bad happens?
(Currently the answer in most cases is: ”No.”.)
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18. Safe and fairly effective choice right now:
WordPress.com

19. Future trends of blogging tools
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20. The race for the best ”Follow” button
• Big question: What becomes the best way
to follow blogs? Currently following blogs
is a mess.
• Right now building
your own platform
is actually a pretty safe
choice since you can adapt
to changing situations.
• Unfortunately it’s also the
most complicated choice.
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21. The race for the best commenting system
• Big question: What becomes the best
way to comment blog articles and be
notified of new comments? Currently
Facebook is leading the way, but
Google+ and Twitter are also additional
”discussion worlds”.
• Right now trying to get readers to
comment on your own platform is
pretty hard. It’s just easier to have
discussions in Facebook or Twitter.
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22. Summary
• If you are not a media company you should
always aim for the rented platform option.
Richard Branson and LinkedIn are a match made
in heaven. You should aim for that also!
• However, if you want to build something that
lasts and can be monetized you might want to
start with WordPress.com and test if your
concept works – then you can move to your own
platform later.
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23. Thank you.
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