Tell me your experiences with blogs

[moxie]

I am considering setting up a blog for my long distance family to be able to see photos of our baby and follow his/her progress. I want to be able to add comments and stories, which is why I am not using Flickr or Picasa. However, I am a bit concerned about privacy, and if I have a blog, random people will find it through key words, etc.

Does anyone have any experience with password protected blog sites? Ideally, I would find one that would just require family to enter a password to see the entries, and not one that would require them to actually set up a user account. Thanks for your suggestions!!!

[larig]

I am considering setting up a blog for my long distance family to be able to see photos of our baby and follow his/her progress. I want to be able to add comments and stories, which is why I am not using Flickr or Picasa. However, I am a bit concerned about privacy, and if I have a blog, random people will find it through key words, etc.

Does anyone have any experience with password protected blog sites? Ideally, I would find one that would just require family to enter a password to see the entries, and not one that would require them to actually set up a user account. Thanks for your suggestions!!!

blogger would allow you to do this. you can set your blog to private. Easy to use and free.

[stonecali]

I have a private blog on blogger.com. Unfortunately, users DO have to set up a google account to view it. There is no way to just have it be password protected on blogger.

The way it works is you send them an "invite" to view your blog. They click the link in the email which takes them to a page that says, "set up a new google account or sign in here" and once they set up their account or sign in, it adds your blog to their list of viewable blogs. And, when they go to the blog, it will make them sign in with their google account to view it (unless they checked the little box that says remember me - it remembers it for a while).

ETA: I have my family bookmark my actual direct link to the blog, and then it is pretty easy. They click on the link from the bookmark and then 25% of the time they have to re-login. The other 75% of the time they are already logged in. It will show your blog instantly (they won't have to jump through hoops and go to their dashboard or main page or anything).

Another thing I do.... with a private blog on blogger you can set it up to blast an email every time you publish a new post. You can add up to 10 email addresses in there. So, for the great grandparents who do not know what they are doing.... I have it set up to blast them an email. The only thing that sucks is that when I update my blog I usually do like 10-12 posts at a time and so that means they wake up in the morning and have 10 emails in their inbox! Another option I was using is just to blast MYSELF the email and then I can forward it to anyone I want from there. I have several family members who literally can barely use their email and having to set up a google account would have blown their mind.

[AnnieW625]

I am very bad at updating mine. I love to write, but I just don't have enough time to keep up with it as I work full time, but I don't know maybe once we have #2 I'll be better about it. I just either send photos via email or I post them on Facebook (I have it set to only friends) most of the time since except my in laws most of the people who want to see new pics. of DD are on there. I have also sent out albums on Snapfish too and that's easy.

[wellyes]

I used wordpress, it was supereasy.

I just named the blog a nonsense word and didn't use anything but first names in the blog. Theoretically someone who I don't invite could stumble across it - but they couldn't really get any personal info from it anyway.

Hardest part was keeping it up. I had it from when DD was 6 months to about 12 months, then I just stopped updating it. Want to start a new family one once I have #2.

[BelleoftheBallFlagstaff]

I have a public blog, it is about current events in the world, my random musings, etc. on Wordpress.
But I also have a private blog on Blogger, and that requires an e-mail invite from me. No one really checks it, so I am lazy with it! My IL's are either not tech savvy or lazy.

[GaPeach_in_Ca]

I just named the blog a nonsense word and didn't use anything but first names in the blog. Theoretically someone who I don't invite could stumble across it - but they couldn't really get any personal info from it anyway.


That's about like our blog. Ours is on blogger.

We don't even use first names, just initials. I can't see what I need to be worried about. I don't really put personal information. I do have pictures of our house, though. It's so boring, I can't see what anyone would gain by looking at it, you know?

We use it to keep family updated.