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Free blog hosting for members at DonationCoder - might be a good idea?

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Wordzilla:
Quoted as it is from my email to mouser today (with his consent)


What do you think if we offer site members (charter/honorary/supporting) a FREE blogging service (or space) upon request? Could be "DC-ized" Wordpress or Blogware or whatever open source. The URLs to respective blogs might be given out as http://username.dcmembers.com.


Benefits:

1. A very attractive additional offer for charter/honorary/supporting members and, of course, potential supporting members, at a relatively low additional cost.

2. It further promotes DC's reputation and popularity. People know that the way that DC operates, its founding ideas and philosophy, and the service quality of the site is awesome, the site is "doomed" to be non-commercial, community-based, and first-class. Few of our members would doubt that and they probably would take our free blogging offer at once, and by the same token, they might treat it as their perfect home for blogging - it's unique, it brings visitors from time to time (DC's a community, first of all, and again you can publicize your blog with your posts, and people will visit it), and it's pride for people to consider themselves as a supporting member and an actual part of this site/community.

3. Blogs attract friends and visitors, and thus more supportive members.

4. It allows people (especially site members) to know much more about each other, and currently DC doesn't provide any stuff like this. And that's not good... :) Blogging bring a person's real life closer to other people, and there's no way a forum will ever achieve.

5. Members exchange their minds on the forum, they become interested in each other, willing to know more about others' life and stuff, and they probably will frequent other members' blogs and comment. You know, if there're more than 5 people who frequent your blog, there's a great chance that you would keep the blog up-to-date. The more active is a member on the forum, the more exposure of his blog will get, and let's say more visitors/friends and comments, which again... you know... it's a healthy positive spiral.


It's not at all hard to find a good blog hosting service today, however I believe that DC's blog hosting will still make a big difference because of DC's popularity is actually based on voluntarily supportive members, not like these blog hosting conglomerates like Blogspot, MSN, etc., where people often think themselves as just free riders (well, in most cases, I believe).

Personally I've blogged on MSN spaces, Blogspot, Wordpress and Live Journal and never did I feel any pride just being a user of such services, and often I regarded myself as a pure free rider who was willing to make do with a "free but basic version". Perhaps no one would say that he was so smart and classy that he decided to use MSN Spaces or put a label on his blog - "Proudly powered by MSN guys". :P    However if someone maintains a DC blog like http://jesse.dcmembers.com, for software lovers/connoisseurs/donationware advocators, it just makes a huge difference - than "http://jesse.spaces.msn.com" or "http://jesse.MySpace.com"


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Carol Haynes:
I think it is a fun idea - personal blogs could be an addition link on the forum user profile (and a prominent button under the user id on the left). It would certainly add a nice human element to the site and a chance for people to really get to know each other.

Would you basically expect content to be restricted DC relevant content (all things software ... within reason) or would they be open to anything that people want to write about (so long as it isn't political or potentially offensive)?

housetier:
I already have my own blog system, however I wouldn't mind at all if it became syndicated on housetier.dc.com or something like that.

mouser:
i love the way mobysaurus described the idea..
i've been thinking we should add something like this with our mini cms idea, but this post really says it in a nicer way than i could have thought to say it.  i think we should try to do this, probably using wordpress or something.

carol asked:
Would you basically expect content to be restricted DC relevant content (all things software ... within reason) or would they be open to anything that people want to write about (so long as it isn't political or potentially offensive)?
--- End quote ---

my feeling is that these would be people's blogs and could be about whatever people wanted, politics included.  it would just be a little service that dc could do for donating members.

it might be fun though to have a page where the most recent post from all dc blogs would be shown, like our our previous blog columns.

KenR:
Ok Mouser, I didn't see any particular need for it when you first mentioned it, but you've convinced me. It sounds like it could a positive addition to the site.

Ken

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