7 ms·
Ask YC: Company Blogs
I've been thinking about the obligatory "blog" link that goes on the front page of a new site. I don't know if I should roll my own simple blogging system (my site is RoR) or use some canned engine that has more overhead, but is tested and reliable. What do you guys think? What has worked for you in the past and what are the pros and cons of each?
- tlrobinson 19y agoWordPress (and others?) is perfectly good. No point in wasting time reinventing the wheel (unless that's your kind of thing). Throw together a template to match your company website if you want.
- bprater 19y agoWordpress. Good developers create, smart developers reuse.
- Hexstream 19y agoI contest. Sayings will only get you so far. Would you disagree that plenty of smart developers create and plenty of good developers reuse?
- airhadoken 19y agoGPP's phrasing seems to be non-mutex such that it explicitly does not say that, e.g. "smart developers do not create" Maybe a more encompassing way of stating the saw would be "while a good developer can create what is required, a smart developer will use what is provided"
- dkokelley 19y agoHe's saying "Don't reinvent the wheel." Use what's available when you can, as it will save you time and money. Make what is not available already.
- pchristensen 19y agoAll saying aside, this guy isn't even sure he wants to blog. Unless he's selling blogging software, his time would be better spent working on his product, marketing, etc instead of rolling his own blogging software. Wordpress is so easy to setup that it's probably taking me longer to write this comment than it would be for him to setup Wordpress.
- boucher 19y agoWordpress has become the defacto standard in blogging systems. I can think of only very few scenarios where someone would want something that they couldn't just use Wordpress for. Not to mention, with the large user base it has, you can get things like plugins and themes to customize your site without doing a lot of work. Plus, the template system is easy enough that writing your own custom theme should be a piece of cake.
- dkokelley 19y agoWhatever you do, I would suggest putting it on your own site (a sub domain, like blog.yoursite.com) instead of a hosts (like companyblog.blogspot.com). It just feels more professional that way. There's a higher level of quality compared to the generic feel of a hosted blog.
- dshah 19y agoI'd agree. If you're going to go to the trouble of writing a blog, you should own and control the domain.
- aaroneous 19y agoFor this sort of application I always recommend a hosted blogging service (wordpress.com, tumblr.com, blogger.com, etc) so that if something affects your servers, you still have a way to communicate with your clients//community.
- dkokelley 19y agoGood point. Both arguments (mine regarding hosting your own blog, and yours) are quite valid. I assume this means linking to it on your site. But if your server goes down, your users won't be able to get to it anyways, unless they have your blog address memorized or bookmarked. Your site should never be allowed to go down for long, unless something major happens, in which case a backup plan is ideal. I would host my own blog, and if my server does go down, redirect the domain to a stable site with a brief explanation of what's going on, and then when every thing's back to normal post about it in the company blog.
- lacker 19y agoUsers will be able to find it, because if your blog is on a different domain, it will probably be somewhere on the first page of google results when you search for your company. I would just keep the blog somewhere like wordpress because they will have a more fully functional blogging engine. Don't spend your time managing your blog software, spend it making your product better.
- dkokelley 19y agoI guess the best way would be to have blog.yourdomain.com redirect to yourblog.bloggingwebsite.com.
- brlewis 19y agoThat's good reasoning, and is what I would have done, until I realized that I'm competing with blogging platforms almost as much as I'm competing with photo-sharing sites.
- edu 19y agoI would use blogspot and a custom subdomain. As aaroneous said the blog will keep up if your servers go down, and also you will save headaches and time that you can use on growing your product. The only problem I've with blogger is their template system, I simply don't like it.
- ivankirigin 19y agoWe made a blogspot blog in about 10 seconds. http://tipjoys2cents.blogspot.com/ http://tipjoys2cents.blogspot.com/ I'm going to roll my own semi-blog that will be a bit different style. With comments by disqus, almost any home brewed site can act like a blog.
- PStamatiou 19y agoMaybe it's just me, but I don't take Blogger blogs seriously, at _all_.
- ivankirigin 19y agoWhy not? The text I want to publish gets pushed out to the page. Extensibility of other platforms means little to me, as the more interesting features I'd need to implement myself.
- ivankirigin 19y agohttp://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/ http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/
- dkd 19y agolol. i was about to mention that site :)
- webwright 19y agoHosted wordpress has worked out for us. Customization is limited-- and no JavaScript widgets of any kind are allowed.
- wallflower 19y agoThis may be off-thread to some but I believe it is very applicable - content not the platform gives the blog value to your customers and customer developers. For a great example, read http://blogs.smugmug.com/don/ http://blogs.smugmug.com/don/ (one of my favorite blogs in terms of technical and personal communication)