I have been doing alot of investigating of various blog software packages, which more generally go under the heading of content management systems (CMS) software. The first criterion I had for choosing an implementation package is that it must be open source, since I am not sure what my longstanding commitment will be to maintaining a blog site and I do not want to make a big financial outlay.
According to a Gilbane report and information on opensourceCMS, there are on the order of 80 open source CMS packages today, out of perhaps a total of 500 CMS packages including those for sale.
I looked at online demos for a number of the packages. (The opensourceCMS has nice online demos for about 40 systems.) The buzz around WordPress, however, was particularly strong. I was very much impressed with a rolling set of WordPress templates from a recent competition and really thought the ease of adding plugins and the number available would meet my near-term needs.
Though I could have done a more detailed comparison, which is my normal style, my approach in this instance was to act more like a “standard” new blogger and only do as much investigation as necessary to make a defensible choice. Thus, WordPress, here we come!
Author’s Note: I actually decided to commit to a blog on April 27, 2005, and began recording soon thereafter my steps in doing so. Because of work demands and other delays, the actual site was not released until July 18, 2005. To give my ‘Prepare to Blog …’ postings a more contemporaneous feel, I arbitrarily changed posting dates on this series one month forward, which means some aspects of the actual blog were better developed than some of these earlier posts indicate. However, the sequence and the content remain unchanged. A re-factored complete guide will be posted at the conclusion of the ‘Prepare to Blog …’ series, targeted for release about August 18, 2005. mkb
