Blogs: Which is the best?

The reason that I haven’t updated in quite some is that I’ve been transferring my blog onto Gather. In light of this, I think I’ll start my blogs back up with a quick review of the sites that they’re on—more in-depth reviews may come later.

XANGA
Age Limit: Thirteen to join, eighteen to view entries rated highly.
Layout options: A few colour changes, background music. The real good thing is that you can add your own codes.
Profile: In-depth
Time coding: Automatic.
Titles: Ninety characters
And does it tell you when you’ve exceeded this limit: Of course not.
Ratings: Enforced—you select what you are comfortable viewing, as long as it’s not older than you are. Unfortunately, It’s very vague and American (e.g. if it’s inappropriate for a thirteen-year-old, it’s inappropriate for a seventeen-year-old), and others can rate your entry.
Groups: “Blogrings” (interests) and “Metros” (hometowns)
These are for: Finding similar blogs.
Limit: 6
Tags: None
Separate sections for: Reviews, events, memories (can be uploaded by others).
Foreign characters: Become ?’s in the blog (though not in the reviews). (“Æ” and “œ” are okay)
Comments: E-mailed to you. Happen every once-in-a-while.
Price: Free, but pushes for paying constantly. Many features are confined to Premium.
Pictures: For free, it’s something like two. Premium gets more, and Premium Plus gets infinite (though they can only upload a certain amount a month). Anyway, they’re only for display.

The first site my blog was on! As such, it has always held a special place in my heart. There are some problems. For example, I have never gotten a reply when I’ve e-mailed for help. And then there are “E-Props.” These are supposedly a way to tell someone you like their entry, however they are illogically defaulted to two—the highest rating available. This means that even if you have comments like this {link to “vile bigotry and hatred” comment}, you get two. And then there’s the Xanga Block. It’s not a problem, it’s just strange. It’s an option that lets you restrict viewing of your Xanga site to people logged in to Xanga. Everyone praised it as a wonderful addition, but I don’t see the point.
All in all, I give it four stars, along with one brown dwarf (almost a star—think Jupiter) for the prospect of premium.


YAHOO 360°
Age Limit: Must be eighteen.
Layout options: Pre-made themes.
Profile: Somewhat full.
Time coding: None—by default the date is your entries title.
Titles: One hundred characters
And does it tell you when you’ve exceeded this limit: Yes, after submission.
Ratings: None.
Groups: “Yahoo Groups”
These are for: Sending out newsletters and e-mailing 2000 people at once.
Limit: As many as you can handle.
Tags: None
Separate sections for: Reviews, RSS, Calendar.
Foreign characters: Accepted.
Comments: Supposedly e-mailed to you. Never gotten one, though my page has been viewed hundreds of times
Price: Free
Pictures: A few. For display.

Us too! Yahoo gets into blog world. What’s nice is that you only need one account for all of the Yahoo services. So, if you have their e-mail and listen to LaunchCast, why not get a blog? The interesting thing is, Yahoo groups are for, as I said, mass e-mails. So, even though they’re listed on your blog, they really have nothing to do with it. These are interesting, but you can get to where you’re getting five hundred e-mails a day. Really, I only go there when I have to (i.e. when I update).
I give this site one star, for effort.


MYSPACE
Age Limit: Must be thirteen to join, eighteen to do anything.
Layout options: Colour changes, background music.
Profile: Pervasive.
Time coding: Date and time can be changed. There is about a six year window on the past and a three year one on the future.
Titles: One hundred characters
And does it tell you when you’ve exceeded this limit: Yes, after submission.
Ratings: None.
Groups: “Groups” (How original)
These are for: Discussing topics on a message board and uploading photos.
Limit: As many as you can claim to be interested in (for the sake of spamming, of course).
Tags: None
Separate sections for: Videos, Friends, News, Calendar, Groups, Pictures (Blogging is really a small part of it).
Foreign characters: Disappear on the blog and become gibberish on the groups.
Comments: “Hey baby. Even though you don’t have a picture, I think you’re cute. Pay for an account at this site and you can see me naked: nonexistent.geocities.com/”.
Price: Free.
Pictures: No limit that I know of. Can be commented on.

MySpace is evil. It is an over-hyped, overly-pop-culture, ad-saturated, nauseating site where the pages randomly stop loading more often than not. The only reason I go there—aside from updating—is because one of the groups I belong to actually has something interesting to say.
I give this site two stars, one of which has collapsed into a soul-sucking black hole.


BLOGGER
Age Limit: None that I know of.
Layout options: Colour changes, pre-loaded themes.
Profile: Alright.
Time coding: Automatic.
Titles: No limit that I know of.
And does it tell you when you’ve exceeded this limit: …
Ratings: None.
Groups: None.
These are for: …
Limit: …
Tags: None
Separate sections for: Nothing—it’s only a blog.
Foreign characters: accepted.
Comments: E-mailed to you. Haven’t gotten any.
Price: Free.
Pictures: None.

A pure blog! No extra bells and whistles to sell it to the public. As such, it requires minimal advertising. It also shows what blogs have been updated recently on the homepage, allowing you to see many strange and interesting blogs. And you can have multiple ones per account, if you’re into that kind of thing.
I give it three, since it’s a good site, despite its lack of features.


BLOG-CITY
Age Limit: None that I know of.
Layout options: A disturbing amount. Really, customising can consume you.
Profile: Pretty detailed.
Time coding: Automatic.
Titles: No limit that I know of.
And does it tell you when you’ve exceeded this limit: …
Ratings: None.
Groups: None.
These are for: …
Limit: …
Tags: It saves your previous tags—allowing you to pull them up with a click—and lists your most used ones on the side of your page. There is also a feature that allows you to see recent blog entries with those tags.
Separate sections for: Management, Tags.
Foreign characters: Accepted.
Comments: Listed on management page, but when you click on them, it says that you have none.
Price: Free.
Pictures: One. For display.

Well, it’s another site…
Two and a half stars.


GATHER
Age Limit: None that I know of.
Layout options: None that I know of.
Profile: A few categories.
Time coding: Automatic.
Titles: No limit that I know of.
And does it tell you when you’ve exceeded this limit: …
Ratings: Five “adult” categories—language, nudity, violence, explicit sexual activity, and “other”—which you have to check if your article contains that. This is displayed in small red text at the top of your article.
Groups: “Groups” again
These are for: Publishing articles to select audiences.
Limit: None, and you only publish articles to the groups you want.
Tags: You enter them at the bottom of the entry, and then in another window it suggests other tags that are often used with those tags. Also, they are used on everything. In fact, that’s how you look for things.
Separate sections for: Groups, Friends, Tags, Recently published.
Foreign characters: Turned into long lines of gibberish.
Comments: E-mailed to you. Happen frequently.
Price: Free.
Pictures: More or less a form of entry—comments, tags, the works.

Xanga may still be my favourite, but Gather has to be the best. The interesting thing is that it isn’t really a blog. You post your articles into a sort of communal bulletin, where people view everyone’s at once. This always makes me feel like I have to change the title for Gather, so that it actually reflects the article. After all, I don’t want false advertising…
I give this site the full five bright, life supporting stars.


Well, there you have it. My report on the blogging community: an interesting collection of whiners, extremist nutjobs, and, worse still, both.
Seeing as this entry should really be geared toward all audiences, my English lesson—“the use of profanity”—will have to wait.