Need help to set up a really simple blog ... I think!

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[AliC]

Hello -

I'm really new to blogging, and am not even sure if it's the solution I need.

My husband is about to turn 60.  We have friends all over the world and I'd like to set up a web page that will allow people to post their birthday greetings to him.  It would be good if I could add some photos, and even better if friends could do so as well.

I have looked at Facebook and MySpace, but am not sure if they are the best options.  This is what I'm really looking for:

- Preferably something that can only be viewed by people who either have a password that we supply, or have been invited to view.
- Definitely something that can only be posted on by people who either have a password or an invitation.
- Something that doesn't require people to register before posting (only entering a password or responding to an invitation).
- Preferably something that will allow photos to be posted by us.
- Preferably something that will alow others to post photos (if they have a password or invitation).

Since a reasonable number of the people that we will be inviting probably won't use the Internet for much more than e-mail, I don't really want them having to register, which is the stumbling block with the well-known social websites like Facebook and MySpace.  (Obviously, I expect to have to register to set up the page in the first place.)  I've Googled 'blog' and seem to keep finding myself directed to sites that require people to be registered before I can invite them to post their greetings.

Am I trying to use the wrong tool for this purpose?  I don't want just to ask people to e-mail, because I thought it would be fun for them to read each others' messages, as there may well be mutual friends who haven't caught up for years.

I'd really appreciate any suggestions from the blogging community (even if it's to let me know that I'm wasting my time!).

Cheers

Alison

[Sephyroth]

First off, welcome to the forums! :wink2:

Second, the first thought that came to my mind which might work out perfectly for your plan is to set up a site on Flickr - you'll be able to mark all the photos as private (viewable by friends and family only, or even just family or just friends), and you'll be able to create a private group, which has these features -

    *  Private groups cannot be made public later.
    * Private groups are useful for families or groups of friends.
    * Only group members and those who have been invited will be able to view the group page.
    * Private groups are completely hidden from group searches, and don't display on people's profiles amongst groups they belong to.

You will need to have your friends and family register an account (or you might even want to make one central account where everyone can upload their photos to) to view the pictures and post pictures.

However, I do see that you'd rather not have to have the added step of registering (btw if your friends have yahoo accounts, they will be able to use Flickr right away), and I'm not sure that there would be a way to do what you're wanting to do without that step, unfortunately

One other possible option (I'm not too sure if it would be too viable though) is to set up a WordPress blog and password protect all the posts, but then it would be more open than the flickr idea.

If you go with wordpress, you could do a wordpress.com account, and set the blog to only allow those you invite to view it access, but then you'd have to have everyone who wants to be a part of this having a WordPress account, and there's a limit of 35 users.

Blogger is another possibility - they allow something similar to that - and all that is needed is a google account (i.e. if you have gmail or use google's personalised searches etc., you'd have one), you could then send out invitations to people to post their thoughts and photos on the blog you'd set up.

[Gemisht]

Welcome to the Forum Alison

One option that you could consider would be a Yahoo group. You could set it up so that you are the group owner and other people can join. Once they are a member of the group they can post photos and messages. They can access the photos via the groups web page and read messages either by email or on the website.

There is no limit to the number of members that you can have in a Yahoo group either. I know a couple of people that have private Yahoo groups to share messages and phots with family and friends. The only thing that they would need to do is register with Yahoo which doesnt take very long at all.

I understand that you don't want everyone to have to register for something but to keep it private you will probably need them to register for something at some stage so that whatever you do is available for viewing by all and sundry.

The only other thing that you could look at is LiveJournal. I am pretty sure that you can make that private too so that only selected people can see it. But I don't know about photos and again they would have to register.

Here is a link to the Yahoo groups home page. Have a look around and see what you think. Maybe even join another group in an area that interests you and get a "feel" for how the groups operate.

Hope that helps 

[Lani]

Depending on how strict you want the privacy level to be on, with a wordpress.com blog you can set it as "private" which will mean the search engines won't crawl it.  Nobody would need passwords to view and people would need to know the URL (address) to visit.  It would still be publicly visible, but not very likely to be "found".  As for who can comment, there are a variety of privacy options in wordpress for that as well.

[Mistress B]

Blogger allows you up to 100 users (though they need a google account) and you can set it to view by invitation only (again if they have an account).

A blog would certainly fit the bill on all counts except the registration one, but I think for what you are wanting any service that you used would require some kind of registration.

[Sueblimely]

I agree that Blogger or Wordpress.com are good options.  Wordpress.com allows you to set different permission levels for users which may be better for your needs. The people you wish to post could be just set as 'contributors' so that all they can do is write posts and not have access to the rest of the admin options.

Rather than adding multiple user accounts you could create a special gmail email account for those you are inviting to post, set this one address up as a contributor in Wordpress and give everyone the login address and password. This same gmail account could be used for photo upload and linking too via picasa web albums. The advantage of this is that the html code for including an image in a post is given to you to copy and paste into a post. You would have to tell people to add their names to their posts using this method.

Another option would be to set up a  private Ning group and invite those you wish to contribute to join the group. They would have to set up a Ning account though. Each person will then have their own page where they can post, add images and videos and comment etc.

[Mistress B]

i recently set one up on blogger for a community group and it has different levels too where people can be admins or authors.