The blog tool deathmatch has resulted in some interesting twists. If you recall (or not), I was digging Windows Live Spaces. And I really hated MySpace. I liked Blogger, and was undecided on Yahoo! 360.
Well now that I'm halfway through the comparison, some things are becoming clear:
- Yahoo! 360 is a big DNF. It's nice and pretty, but it has one fatal (if otherwise minor) flaw: it doesn't let you post pictures inline with text. That alone pretty much rules it out right there. In fact, after this post I'm abandoning it.
- Suprise! MySpace is turning out to be not too shabby for blogging after all—mainly because it will accept just about any valid HTML and inline CSS as blog input, and display it correctly. I still find all the blaring ads really annoying though, and overall it's still too busy, so it's going to be hard for it to make it to the top of my list.
- Windows Live Spaces—which started out as my baseline and de-facto favorite—is slipping a bit. I really like just about everything about it—it's so clean and pretty and easy to use. The one and only Achilles heel is that, while it supports inline styles, that support is limited. It lacks the critical ability to float block elements, and you also cannot style tables. These things are pretty much required for blogs with a nice professional look. However, most bloggers enter text only, so while it's important to me, it would never be an issue for most—and that makes Windows Live Spaces an excellent choice (if not the best out of this mix) for the average blogger. Note: ideally, article authors would control their layout purely with separate stylesheets (rather than inline styles), but the reality of blogging tools is that's not always possible—and blogs read through RSS feeds don't have their originating site's stylesheets, which sometimes makes inline styles the only option.
- Blogger is growing on me. I hate to say it, but for "advanced" blogging (advanced text layout as well as totally customizing the site to be your own), this is the one for all the rest to beat. With absolutely full and total control over CSS and the HTML template (including ads), Blogger has set the bar high! The output HTML is a bit heavy though, as every page includes full-blown CSS in the HTML header (rather than a separate file that only gets downloaded once).
More to come later.
© 2006 James R. Collier, all rights reserved.