These are exciting times for OlyBlog. We've grown immensely and are a source for all sorts of amazing projects. The way I see it, nothing ever has to be everything for everyone. Expansion and evolution is a good thing.

If OlyBlog is a nest, I'm in the mood to shout out enthusiastically "Fly, chickies, fly!". I'm one of many OlyBloggers who have grown up here and who can see the benefits of redirection and expansion.

So I'm going to do a semi-rambling series of posts on this theme. How can you start your own blog? I'm going to focus on what is free and relatively easy to use.

What are you reading already online? Do you follow a favorite blogger's blog, do you read what friends write? As you do so, start paying attention to the blog platform.

Some examples from local bloggers:

Photography-Industrial Archaeology-Words and The Canaanite's Call use Blogger

Cosmo's Condo and Read What I've Got to Say use WordPress.com

If a blogger is using a free platform the name of the platform will usually be right in the url itself. Also look over the site, most have the name of the platform used at the bottom of the page, click that link and look over the information provided.

You can run your own independent blog or you can blog within a blogging community, such as Vox, that encourages sharing and networking. I'll write more about that in my next post.