by Matthew Adams

Created on: July 31, 2008   Last Updated: September 14, 2008

Web-blogs have become popular. However, are they so good? Web-blogs have many advantages, but some might argue they also have disadvantages. First, to look at some of the pros.

The Pros:

There are a number of advantages with regard to web blogging. The first is the fact that web blogs provide authors with a means of providing content of their choice on the web.

Likewise, the web blogs are easy to set up and do not require any html skills. Contrast this to web pages and sites, which can require the author to have some sort of familiarity with html mark up language, and then get them hosted. With blogging, you can just pick your template and start writing.

Web blogs can also display formatting like pictures, along with italic, bold text, underlining, and a selection of fonts available for use. Contrast this to Helium, which does not give the authors any formatting options at all. As such, blogs can be used to create picture galleries for photography, and have video features added.

While Helium does provide ad revenue, blogs can also do the same. Providers like Blogspot have teamed up with the likes of Google Adsense, to provide the user with the opportunity to display click the link add schemes and generate revenue from their blog.

Blogs also have feedback channels, where comments can be made on the articles posted. This allows suitable comments to be made in response to the entries the author has posted. Stimulating discussion can be held on blog entries.

Equally, a lot of blogs are free to set up. Without a string attached, this is a big pro.

The Cons:

In the light of these advantages, finding cons might seem difficult. However, for one, blogs can only really have fairly limited formatting options. In contrast to what can be done with web pages and sites, they are not that flexible. For example, Blogspot does not provide the option to create tables, and only has a certain number of templates to choose from.

Force me to pick another disadvantage, for the most part traffic can be difficult to stimulate. A lot of blogs have little or no traffic, and as such the articles are not being read much. It is true that traffic can be boosted in various ways, but not all bloggers find that they can gain an audience.

Although many blogs are free to set-up, some providers, like TypePad, do require a subscription. Therefore, that is a drawback also.

So of course, blogging has pros and cons. Bearing in mind that blogs are free to set-up and easy to use, the pros seem to outweigh the cons. However, my feelings are that some might prefer to set up a web-site, and the lack of traffic on a number of blogs might seem to make web-sites more worthwhile for the more web-proficient.

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