by Delayne Terra Buranek

Created on: March 11, 2009

I had my first website when I was twelve. It was on Geocities because it was free, and blogs were barely getting started. I still remember when the blog template was first added, only back then if I remember correctly they just called it a diary. I posted my angst filled teenage poems or short stories that I wrote. I learned basic html so I could change the color of my background and text, or add links and pictures.

Over the years it required less and less work to build a website. Templates made it as easy as typing up a page in a word document. The internet was starting to expand and you could find anything you'd ever dream of. But then blogs exploded. It made sense, an even simpler format to post anything you wanted, set up like a diary. People began to express themselves, ranting and raving about anything their hearts desired.

However, we are not talking about the best place to air your feelings. So when it comes to promoting your work a website is simply superior.

Part of it is the set up. I'm currently using a blog to post short stories and am constantly frustrated by the organizational structure of it. Things are dated. These time stamps are irrelevant to a compilation of short stories which may or may not be intertwined. If I had them on a website there would simply be a list.

A few blogs can be set up with first to most recent, but the common set up goes most recent to backwards. Both are very useful. If you have relevant recent items that should be at the top, then it works effectively. Say for example your latest review, which would be more important than one you got years ago. But stories, or things where a previous post is needed for the next one to make sense, work better in reverse order. However you can't do both at the same time in a blog. It is one or the other. A web page could do both.

Being limited to one page, as is common with the simpler free to use blogs, is another frustration. Sure blogs have tags with which to categorize things, but having a whole separate page makes more sense to me. This is especially useful if I feel the need to deviate away from anything I normally do. I could separate pages for stories within a theme.

So why do I still use a blog? Blogs still have many worthy positive aspects. The most important is that they are all the rage. Their popularity is enormous. The sites where you can use them for free (or purchase upgrades for) are interconnected making them easy to share and find others with similar interests.

I merely have snippets online for now. These short stories and other writings are free to the public, in an effort of self promotion. But if I were selling something, I'd rather do a web page. I find them much more impressive. Besides, you can post your blog within your webpage either on your main page in a window or it can have a separate page on its own!

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