July 6, 2013

• Alternative Free Websites Review

  After doing some research on where to move when Xanga 1.0 ends, I selected WordPress. I thought I’d share my review of the free alternative websites and what I thought were their pros/cons.

  Note: Like all reviews, take with a grain of salt since I’m basing it on “my” preferences, which may differ from yours. This review is also not meant to be super complete or thorough since I haven’t taken the time to examine every aspect/feature of every alternative site.

  All right here we go…

   

  First up is the main site that all other sites are being compared to: Venerable Xanga 1.0!

   

  Xanga 1.0

  Pros: The community experience is bar none one of the best there is for any blogging site. The ease in which you can meet new people and receive feedback, and yet doesn’t require your life to be under a microscope (cough Facebook) beats anything I’ve seen out there to date. This is a main reason why so many people who already have moved to and tried more modern alternative blogs remain faithful to Xanga and keep returning through the years. It manages to mix the level of privacy and social networking at just the right amount.

  Here’s how it usually works. Someone leaves Xanga and goes to an alternative blogging site. They are pleased with the more modern features/interfaces, but quickly see something important is “missing” when their feedback drops to few responses, if any. Over time, the most likely things to happen are:

  1) They abandon/neglect their new blog and resume blogging on Xanga

  2) They “dual blog”, continuing to post on Xanga while updating their alternative blog as well

  3) They stay on the new blog and eventually stop blogging altogether – likely due to lack of feedback/interaction.

  Of course there are cases where a person relocates and reestablishes a high following/feedback base, as well as those who are content to proclaim their message regardless of the amount of feedback received. But as a general rule, Xanga gives you social interaction and feedback far easier than on most other sites. Building up a sizable social base on other sites requires more action on your part to actively seek out and mingle with new folks to help get your site noticed in the process. With Xanga that process seems to form more naturally/organically. Not that there aren’t “loner” Xangan’s who don’t receive any interaction/feedback, but efforts at being social pay back higher response dividends than at other sites based on my experience/observations.
  

  
  I think one key is Xanga’s front page, and later on their “ish” sites, which creates a forum where people can chime in and get to know each other. It gives Xanga the “university” feel – where people of all backgrounds/majors can meet and mingle sharing their thoughts, feelings, opinions, and ideas. The other more modernized sites lack this and as a result are more like a “workplace” or “large apartment complex” feel- where most of the people you tend to meet are like minded and less diverse in thought. It’s also less “social” and feels like more of a “professional” environment. You likely have to put in a lot more work and effort to get more of a social environment setting.
  

  Extra goodies are friends-lock, private messaging, private/protected posts, etc…
  

  The bottom line is Xanga is relatively easy to learn, comfortable, and all it takes is one rec from a socially active person to bring a host of traffic to your site.
  

   

  Cons: While it has a very big list of pros, there are some significant cons as well. First and foremost is the ever decreasing net traffic on the site:
  

  http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/xanga.com#trafficstats
  

  Site is ranked at 4797 in US, 5866 Globally. It’s far down the scale relative to the more popular sites, which translates into far less traffic, or people using the site. This does reduce the community experience as your posts have fewer and fewer people available to see them. In any blogging site, your first interaction zone is within the blogging site community itself, and then other blogging sites. So if the primary community has less overall traffic, the impact is felt much more.
  

  A quick look at the front page Top Blogs (Formally called “Featured”) section tells the tale. Back in the day, making the Top Blogs list could land you anywhere from 1500 – 5000+ views easily and well over 100 comments. If you were an unknown, it was your chance to shine in the spotlight. It truly felt like a big accomplishment that your blog was deemed worthy enough to make the list. These days, blogs can make the list and leave with just a handful of views and comments. In addition, some of the blogs that do show have questionable content that may not be suitable for all age groups. Of course this is due to the automatic choosing algorithm now in place, but the lower net traffic can result in just about any blog getting listed with just a few views or comments.
  

  
  On the flip side, Xanga lost some of the problems a super high traffic community site can have – unnecessary drama with flame wars aplenty. Let’s start with “Top Blogs”  – there were numerous complaints that Top Blogs was locked up by certain cliques that would appear on the list again and again, shutting out newcomers. To address that problem they came up with the “algorithm” instead of manually selected blogs which helped. Then you have the folks with a “jillion” friends who get into fights with others with a “jillion” friends, resulting in epic flame wars as people join sides and defend their friend. Those kind of fights drove folks away  from Xanga to other sites as well. Of course, this is a problem for any community site – the “Xanga wars” of yesterday have relocated to the “Facebook wars” of today.
  

  Another big problem is the lack of more modern features. They are still in 2G mode in a world that has moved to 3.5G. It’s harder to make use of video/audio due to compatibility issues with newer formats. Other blogging sites can’t easily connect to exchange blogs.
  

  Xanga 2.0 should solve the “obsolete” problem, but is likely to exacerbate the net traffic problem with the new pay wall.
  

   

  Livejournal

  Pros: This site has a good set of community related features and interaction, and also a front page listing top blogs. Net traffic is also high:
  

  http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/livejournal.com#trafficstats
  

  Livejournal is globally ranked #160, US rank is 381
  

  
  Cons: While the global traffic is at #160, its top blogging country is Russia, where it’s ranked #13. This means that while it’s popular, if you’re a US blogger, don’t expect the majority of blogs to be US or North American centric. I like to test a site out by doing a search for day traders or trading in general, and just about all the hits are sites in Russia, in blogs written in Russian.  There are US “community enclaves”, but you should check to see if it’s a group that shares your interests. This site has fallen out of favor in the US, but has maintained a large following globally.
  

  There also seems to be little in the way of more modern blogging options and customizations. It’s interface feels less advanced than Xanga’s. I’m not a fan of its look and feel.
  

   

  Blogspot

  Pros: More modern blogging features and a high US/Global net traffic ranking:
  

  http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/blogspot.com#trafficstats
  

  Ranked #12 Globally, #13 in US.

  Also easy to learn and start blogging shortly after signing up.
  

  Cons: Not natively social. No community involvement to speak of. Each blog is a world unto it’s own. You typically have to be far more active in seeking out and mingling with other blogs to build a following. Otherwise, not uncommon to get very little commenting/social interaction.
  

   

  Combo Pro & Con: They are combining Blogspot with Google Plus to provide the missing “community” – that’s the pro. The “con” is you have to join Google plus for it- a community dictated on Google’s privacy terms. Even with Plus, social functionality still lags behind Xanga.
  

   

  Blogster

  Pros: Nice community feel. Has a comforting feel very similar to Xanga. Also similar Xanga-like functionality such as private messaging and friends lock.

  Cons: Despite the excellent community set up and similar features to Xanga, it also suffers from the same problems such as low net traffic, only on a much greater scale:
  

  http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/blogster.com#trafficstats
  

  
  Global rank is 18,088 That makes Xanga’s 5866 ranking look like a metropolis in comparison. Rank is even worse for US users with a ranking of 28,601. Definitely not good if one is seeking increased interaction and a wider audience. This also portends future problems. If Xanga is having money issues with ad revenue, then the problems for Blogster must be significantly worse with its far lower traffic numbers.
  

  Also, since they are not high ranked in the US, the site will lean towards outside of North America topics.
  

   

  Tumblr
  

  Pros: Popular and high traffic blogging site:
  

  http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/tumblr.com#trafficstats
  

  Global rank: 28, US rank: 18
  

  
  It has some community features to help with folks finding your site.
  

   

  Cons: This isn’t really a full blogging site, but more of a micro blogging site. The focus is more on shorter journals and visual media rather than writing at length. Comments aren’t native to the site, but can be installed via Disqus. You can still create long written blogs here, but the site really isn’t built for that type of publishing.
  

  A pet peeve of mine is when you go to your homepage, you get to see other Tumblr posts in addition to the ones you’re following (if any), following someone is the equivalent to subscribing to them as you will see all of their blogs. I wish there were a separate “Read Subscriptions” button instead. I’m not sure how the additional posts (from those you’re not following) that show up get chosen. Granted I just recently signed up to check it out, so I may not be aware of all the ins and outs of operation that could solve this issue.
  

   

  Hubpages

  
  Pros: Nice community site. Lots of publishing features/plug ins. Opportunity to get paid for your writing. Good traffic volume:
  

   

  http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/hubpages.com#trafficstats
  

  Global rank: 485, US rank: 442

   

  Blog posts written here are called “Hubs”, and the site is specially geared to spread traffic to everyone’s site. Your blog hub (post) will show links to similar posts written by others. It’s similar to Xanga’s related post feature, except that the related posts will be from others bloggers.

  They also have a “Hub of the day” (HOTD) to feature top blog posts.

  Community seems actively involved in reading/critiquing other posts. Pay for writing I’m told is variable and is estimated to be from 10 cents to a dollar per post per month on average.

  Con: They want formal informative blog posts only. This isn’t a personal blogging site. So if you want to write in a general way, such as a restaurant “foodie” review, how-to guide, travel info, etc…, this is a site with potential. However, its not a good site for more personal entries like talking about one’s daily activities or feelings and what not. This would make it a good formal or secondary blog but not a general purpose one.

   

  WordPress

  Pros:  High traffic site with good publishing tools as well as some nice community features.

   

  http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/wordpress.com#trafficstats

   

  Global rank: 25, US Rank: 32

   

  I was pleasantly surprised with the amount of community features presented. Beyond the “freshly pressed” blogs list, under “Blog Admin”, you have a Top Blogs, Top Posts, and Latest tabs- very Xanga-like! It also has a real-time comment notifier to let you know if anyone comments on any of your blogs – a very nice feature to have.
  

  Cons: It aint Xanga. Despite the community features, there is still the issue of social interaction and response to ones blog posts. Having a Top Blogs and Top Posts list hidden in the Blog Admin section rather than on the front page minimizes its community help. Building up a reader following still has to be done actively and with greater effort than on Xanga. Many blogs here still receive few to no comments/feedback.
  

  There’s also a good learning curve to get familiar with how to access and work with all the features you have available. That can scare away folks used to simpler interfaces. Takes some time to get familiar with.
  

   

  Based on my needs, WordPress had the best mix of high traffic plus community potential to satisfy my alternative home blogging requirements. I also still have an interest in Hubpages, since I do tend to write general informative blogs, like the current one here. Perhaps I’ll make Hubpages a secondary site to the WordPress site for my formal blog posts. After all, WordPress was originally my secondary site to Xanga for formal blogs.
  

   

  Some nice social blog search tools:

  http://social-networking.findthebest.com/

  http://blog-services-review.toptenreviews.com/

   

  • 10:51 am
  • 25 Comments