I'm thinking about setting up a crafty blog

[kaliha]

As I've said above I'm thinking of setting up a crafty blog, somewhere I can advertise and show off to family and friends IRL. Which is something I can't do at the moment because I don't want them to find this place. This is my personal place and I really don't want IRL people poking around it.

So I've been looking at my options.


LiveJournal
Pros:
Know how it works
Fairly easy to customise

Cons:
Many lots of LJ!fail in recent times
Don't want to pay them more money

Wordpress.org
Pros:
can host on my own domain
can customise to hearts content
free

Cons:
Had hacking issues in the past

Wordpress.com
Pros:
don't have to worry about hacking issues
Can set it up to look a lot like an actual website

Cons:
not as customisable
have to pay to domain map/have custom themes etc

Then there's places like Blogspot and Blogger than I've never used before.

Which do you think would be the best to go with? A Poll:
[Poll #1555866]

And what could I call it? Again suggestions welcome in comments.

Comments

[khallandra.livejournal.com]

This is my personal place and I really don't want IRL people poking around it.

Yes! I've been thinking the same thing about putting reviews and the like in a public domain. I know people who love their Blogger! So I was thinking about moving to that but I haven't made my decision yet and I was also tossing up the idea of hosting a personal blog script on my website instead...

[th-esaurus.livejournal.com]

I just recently got a blogspot to use as an art portfolio/showcase, and I rather like it. It's easy enough to update and customise and looks simple and smart. I don't know if I would say OOH OOH USE BLOGSPOT, but it seems pretty okay to me ;)

[kittybacklash.livejournal.com]

I use blogspot for my bookreview blog and I enjoy it greatly. It's pretty customizable, I just haven't gotten around to actually doing that yet. You have to dig around for code and such like on LJ. It's not difficult to use at all.

[pontisbright.livejournal.com]

Have totally been tussling with this one lately (and finding it v difficult to decide which things are meant to go where and for who: it's like I'm leading an exciting double life, only without the part where it's exciting).

Think it really depends on your priorities. Blogger's a great freebie and v user-friendly, but not as customisable as Wordpress: good for a quick get-it-up-there version if you aren't too fussed about look and feel, but after LJ I found it a bit limited. Wordpress good for having a distinct site, whereas LJ's better for that instant community angle - but that might involve a bit too much crossover. I think LJ and DWth are still seen as geek niches by some.

Since you already have a domain and you want it to be a safe-for-RL-people thing, I'd say WP.org is worth looking at (even if it has made me cry quite often). Don't know anything about the hacking side, though.

[dune-drd.livejournal.com]

The crafty people seem to prefer Blogspot, mostly. I have no idea why, but it looks most like a 'real' homepage to make it the best choice here, maybe.

[morbid-sparks.livejournal.com]

I have absolutely no idea - I think Emma uses blogspot for her crafty stuff...

[supertrink.livejournal.com]

i have wordpress.com and .org accounts, and i have to say i love them both. i think setting up your own domain is totally worth it, because you can get really customized and like you said, it looks like a real website. plus you can make your domain name really easy for friends and family to find. and you can set up the rss feed so that it can show up on your friends here's flists. this is a really long comment just to say i really like wordpress... lol!

[tencrush]

Blogger and Blogspot are the same thing, surely? Blogger accounts are called accountname.blogspot.com and the whole shebang is owned by Google.

[sal101010.livejournal.com]

I've read plenty of Blogger and Blogspot blogs but I've never used them myself. They always look fairly neat and tidy though...

[txvoodoo.livejournal.com]

I bought a domain to do the same!

Toy know what you *could* do is get a domain and then use livejournal or posterous or tumblr as the engine.

Wordpress has gotten much better. Dreamhost makes updates very easy.