I haven't been great at keeping my resolution, which I should have expected. I'm easily distracted. As I'm creating the syllabus for my class this fall (J4700: Online Journalism), I'm inspired again because I'm requiring my students to start a blog, and it gave me an interesting question to pose here: What blogging software or application is the best? Please sound off. I want to break my record of 1 comment. (Thanks Emily!!)

Here are your options:
I use SimplePHP blog mostly because that's what I learned in class. I do like that it's easily customizable IF you know a little PHP, which I don't really. I also like some of its other features such as ratings and auto tag discovery, but on a well-read blog like mine, they're not really getting used.

Next, there's the ever popular Blogger, which is what most of my friends use. It's nice and simple, and you aren't required to find someone to host your files. Hey, I like it too, don't get me wrong, but I'm wondering if some of you longtime Blogger (or Blogspot) users are frustrated with its lack of customization now that you know how to or want to do more.

Finally, there's Wordpress, which might be strike a middle ground between the two. You can actually download the software at Wordpress.org so you can customize to your heart's content, but you can also have the Wordpress folks host it for you for free. Tons of applications and development notes are available for it, but it again requires a little more effort to find and install them, often using html code.

Other options exist as well. I found this great link I'm sharing with my class if you are interested. I hadn't heard of Mephisto before, although Ruby on Rails did sound somewhat familiar. Take a look if you want, but mostly, I'd love to hear your opinions. They might make a difference on what my students are required to do this semester. I think I'm going to make them download and use WordPress. That's what we use at MyMissourian.