Using a Free Blogging Service vs. Blogging on Your Own Hosted Site is a presentation by Mark McLaren of McBuzz Communications. Who can learn from this presentation? Anyone at a beginner level of blogging or new to blogging. Topics covered: Free blog services like WordPress.com and Blogger.com; Third-party hosted blogging; How to decide which one is best for you; What is a Plugin? What is a Theme? What is a Widget? First used as part of a live presentation at Social Media Camp Seattle 2008, these slides have been modified to include much of the spoken component given by Mark McLaren at Social Media Camp. For more information, contact Mark McLaren at http://www.mcbuzz.com/

1. Using a Free Blogging Service vs. Blogging on Your Own Hosted Site How to Decide Which One is Best for You Includes examples of plugins , themes and widgets .

2. Using a Free Blogging Service vs. Blogging on Your Own Hosted Site Mark McLaren mcbuzz.com twitter.com/mcbuzz

6. Depending on your audience…

7. … a generic blog design may be fine.

13. Plugin Example: “Share This”

14. When you install the “Share This” plugin in your blog, it puts a button after every post. Readers can click on the button to let others know about the post or to bookmark it.

15. The “Share This” plugin is free. You can install it in about ten minutes by downloading a file from WordPress.org and uploading it to your 3 rd -party hosted site using FTP software.

16. The “Share This” button at the end of a post on the mcbuzz.com website.

17. Some features – like this “Notify me via e-mail” checkbox – must be added manually or by installing a plugin. You cannot get them with free blogs hosted on WordPress.com , Blogger.com, etc. Comments. “ Notify me via e-mail when these comments are updated.”

18. Plugins like “Recent Comments” come with WordPress.com, but other great plugins like Related Posts” do not . Comments.

19. The Plugin Directory of over 2,500 plugins on WordPress.org

20. Example of a Theme This is a WordPress theme. Themes on Blogger.com are similar in most respects. They are easy to use, easy to switch from one to another, etc.

21. Changing your theme is easy In the WordPress administration panel, go to Design > Themes. Click on the theme you want to use.

22. Same content, different theme

24. The Flickr Photos widget has been added to the left sidebar.

25. To add a widget, go to Design > Widgets in the WordPress administration panel. Click the Add button. Then click the Edit button for that widget and fill in the blanks.

26. For the Flickr Photos widget, you just fill in the title you want to display in the sidebar, fill in the Flickr RSS URL you get from your Flickr account page, and select the number of thumbnails you want to appear in the sidebar.

32. Custom WordPress Designs Design by e-CBD www.e-cbd.com

33. Custom WordPress Designs Design by OMSH ohmystinkinheck.com

40. Thank you! Mark McLaren mcbuzz.com Tel. (209) 962-9119