Just Bento

Hi Barb,

There are many options for blogging! All are free, so don't worry about that. I have a feeling that you might get many different responses, but for the most part all the platforms out there are fairly easy to use, just differ aesthetically and in more technical ways that don't really matter if you aren't a techie.

I personally use a combination of a few different blogs platforms.

I've had a LiveJournal for many many years, and although I enjoy keeping the one I have for sentiment, I wouldn't necessarily recommend it- I think many platforms have come up in the past few years that are aesthetically more pleasing.

Google has the platform Blogger which many people use.

I like personally like WordPress the best, as I use it for my (work) blog and for a personal blog as well. It just is easy to post and upload photos.

Whatever you choose, just take some time looking at both other people's blogs, and reading the tutorials.

Have fun!

Thanks! I ended up checking out Blogger since I have gmail. It's pretty good I guess, anyway it will do. thanks again. ^_^

In addition to what stackeff said (and for the benefit of anyone else reading this topic), the following places are good for keeping personal journal-type blogs:

• Vox - I think this is almost perfect for a non-techie person to use as their personal blog. It makes a lot of things very easy (such as inserting photos or links) and there are a number of attractive page template designs to choose from. You can choose to make individual posts readable by only your friends or family, or only by you, and so on. The drawback: they do run some ads on your pages (and you don’t benefit from the revenues). (I have a long abandoned Vox site that I was using for a little while as a personal journal type thing - maki.vox.com.)
• Wordpress.com. This one is also very easy to get up and going. They have lots of templates to choose from also. They do not run ads on your pages, but they also do not let you put your own ads on their pages either, which may be a concern if you find your blog getting very popular and you want to benefit from that money-wise. (Note that Wordpress.com is not the same as Wordpress.org - Wordpress.com is a hosted free service, while Wordpress.org is where you get the blogging software that Wordpress.com runs on, to install on your own server.)
• Blogger. This one is also very easy to get up and going. The initial selection of templates is a bit limited, but you can customize it a lot. They have no restrictions about placing Google Adsense ads and so on on a Blogger blog (well why should they…Google owns Blogger). There are many very popular blogs on Blogger. Drawbacks…Blogger can sometimes be flaky, and it may not be obvious how to do some things like insert pictures and so on.
• Typepad. This is not a free service, but is pretty inexpensive - I think the pricing plans start at $4.95 a month. It’s sort of one step up from Vox, run by the same people. Re-arranging your page design is fairly easy, and since you do pay for it you do get some customer support. No restrictions about having ads and so on. A lot of very big blogs run on Typepad, such as Cute Overload. Cons: well, it’s not free, can occasionally be slow. Justhungry.com actually started as a Typepad site (though I only put it on Typepad when it was the new hot thing since I had a discount coupon…which to give them credit is still being honored!), and I still have my language blog there which uses a basic design with my own colors - Hungry For Words)
• Live Journal - a lot of people complain about Live Journal, but it’s been around for a long time and is really set up for a personal journal kind of thing. I am not sure how much you can customize page layout and so on - most Live Journal sites seem to be using default layouts. There are many communities on Live Journal, including a few bento related ones.

There was also a post on BlogHer recently about choosing blogging platforms. I don’t agree with all that the author is saying (like ‘Moveable Type is not as malleable as WordPress.org’…b.s.) but it’s a pretty good overview of your options.

Some popular food blogs that run on the platforms listed above:

• Vox - I don’t know of any (but as I said it’s really for personal journal type blogs)
• Wordpress.com - Holy Basil, Main-main Masak-Masak
• Blogger - Becks and Posh, Fiestie Foodie, What’s For Lunch Honey?
• Typepad - Chez Pim, The Food Section, Life Begins at 30
• Live Journal - I don’t know of any (but it is mostly used for personal journal type blogs)

I just want to add that although there are a whole lot of ways that you can stylize your blog, there are still going to be some of the geeks (like me) who will follow you through something like Google Reader (like me), which will eliminate all of your background images, fancy fonts and other pathways to self expression.