I’ve been blogging on LiveJournal since 8/2001, although I didn’t call it blogging then, and i don’t really call it blogging now either. There’s just something about LJ that makes me not take it seriously as a blogging platform – maybe it’s because for a long time, when you’d hit the “view random journal” button, you’d end up the journal of some 12 year old girl talking about math class or her latest crush in pink font on a white background.
I’m also on Twitter. I love the micro-blog concept, although mostly i look at what i post and think “who cares about this?” I’m not even sure I do half the time. That, I think, is a bigger concern of mine, and maybe I’ll make a post about that.
Thankfully, since Twitter can update my Facebook status, it does get some response and thus, in some small way, lives up to it’s social promise. Much more than I get updating Twitter alone.
For this project, especially after looking ahead to some of the exercises, Twitter would be problematic, I think, as a primary platform. I can imagine it playing a useful support role however.
Maybe some enterprising individual will want to do their entire SLA 23 Things on Twitter?
Anyway, so, why WordPress? Because I have to use WordPress at work to update a blog (I post things other people have written, with minor edits here and there). My hope is that I’ll learn a lot more about it during the 23 Things project, since I’m restricted in a lot of ways on the work blog, e.g. I can’t go on a widget-adding bender.
My impression, after spending 15 minutes choosing a theme from tons of colorful options, was that the dashboard is rather sterile – like it’s trying too hard to be professional looking and not offend anyone’s tender sensibilities. Maybe I’m reading too much into it though. Or maybe it’s that pale, washed out blue.
It also took me about 20 minutes to figure out how to edit the About page. When I found it – Manage, Pages – it was a “Duh!” moment to be sure.
Anyone using WordPress want to tell me what their favorite feature is? Is there a way to edit the dashboard’s appearance? (Keep in mind I’m using the free version)
