Back in January I suggested that the blogging company Six Apart was going to be sold. A representative of the company soon contacted me and told me that I shouldn’t read too much in the reports I’d read and added a comment to my blog entry. However, today I read that Six Apart has indeed sold off one of its blogging platforms, LiveJournal. So I was nearly right…!
What’s interesting in the coverage of this sale is that it has gone to Russia, where other blogging platforms, like Blogger or WordPress have failed to gain any substantial users. Maybe LiveJournal supports the Russian alphabet more easily than Blogger or WordPress. Maybe Six Apart has had some really vocal fans in Russia that have helped them gain popularity for LiveJournal. Maybe I was right all along – that SixApart is selling up.
There are several different blogging platforms, from Blogger, to WordPress, Microsoft’s offering Live Spaces as well as those from SixApart, including LiveJournal and Movable Type. There are dozens of others, as well as scripts you can download to set up your own blogging system on your own web site.
Much debate goes on in the blogging world as to which is the best system. Indeed, the sale of LiveJournal has sparked a debate, with some disgruntled customers suggesting SixApart always gave higher priority to their other blogging services. Whatever the truth of the matter, worldwide Blogger is the most popular system. It has its critics, true, and it has its problems. But, for anyone starting a blog – and for those wishing to easily integrate a blog into their own web site (such as this one) – it is by far the most straightforward system there is. It’s not “No. 1” in the blogging hit parade for nothing.
If you want to integrate a blog into your business, don’t let the renewed debate sparked by LiveJournal’s sale, misdirect you into various dead ends of testing all the various systems out there. Just choose one you like and get going; for most people Blogger will be the solution as you can have your blog up and running within five minutes.
