Bubbles in the Bathtub

The article discusses how easy it has become for people to post content to the web, with blogs being one of the vehicles. It also rates the various blogging systems. Moveable Type, the system used by seaturtle.org is one of the better rated systems. I tried a few of them before launching Turtle Journals and have to admit that I liked Moveable Type much more than any of the others. Some are easier to set up, but not nearly as functional. It also rates some of the tools for posting. Again, I have tried many of the programs they reviewd and found their top-rated app, Kung-Log, to be my favorite as well.

In any case, the reason I went to that article first was because of the cover blurb on the magazine: "Weblog Tools Let You Build a Professional or Personal Web Site in a Flash".

Perhaps a bit of an over-statement, but the idea of using a blog system to provide people with an easy way to create a website is intriguing (so?).

I am very much interested in providing an easy way for sea turtle folks to create websites of their own to share with the rest of the sea turtle community. What better place to do this than seaturtle.org, right? I've made a go at it with the members sites, but it hasn't been as popular as I'd hoped. I don't know if that's because people don't know about it, don't know how to use it, or just don't know how to author web pages. Probably a mix of the three. I suppose it doesn't matter how easy or free you make a web site people if they don't know how to author a website in the first place. Unfortunately I can't create everyone's web sites, let alone provide help for everyone that asks in creating their own.

I've considered setting up a template system to make it easier for folks to create webpages. In other words, they wouldn't need to know any of the underlying html, just fill in some blanks. Another option could be a blog system.

The ultimate expression of this effort will hopefully be to provide web space to any sea turtle organizations that want them. But again, if they don't know how to create a web site it won't do much good. Another option would be to find a collection of html jocks to work for low or no cost to help these orgs develop, create and maintain their websites (there is nothing more annoying than stale content). Perhaps there are folks out there willing to donate their time in such endeavors or perhaps we could tap into some university students that need some practive for class projects or some such.

That's quite a ramble...

If anyone has any ideas, fire way!