Mobile Blogging - As Easy As One Two Three
Is it that straight forward?
I have recently been looking into some of my Blogger blogs that have felt some neglect over the last few months due to changes in life events, Panda-monium, concentrating my online efforts On places like Hubpages, Squidoo, Ezine Articles and so forth.
When looking into some statistics on these (neglected, soon to be updated) blogs, I notice that a facility to update blogs via mobile facility is available. Wait...that means I can be literally anywhere and shoot out a blog post on the spot, with a photo or video. Yes, you can update a blog within moments of an event happening.
Now some folk are more than likely rather savvy and are already using mobile phones to update their Blogger or Wordpress blogs. But for some of us Johnny or Jenny-Come-Lately's we still have to look into how it all works, what is the most suitable solution to posting and does it all work?
Read on, and see some solutions which in all are relatively straight forward and as easy as one two three. Put it this way, if you can send an email, you can blog on your mobile, great huh!
This Is One Option - Use An App
Depending on which blogging platform you use (or you may even use more than one) for at least the two most popular platforms - Wordpress & Blogger, each of these has a plethora of Apps available for common smartphones, thats usually at least Android and IOS.
BlogPress - is a IOS app that makes blogging simple for Blogger, Joomla, MSN Live, Wordpress and many more. One can upload photos, video, integrate with Google Maps, text and simple html. Paid for app, not free.
iBlogger - Integrates similar to Blogpress, yet one needs a Picasa account to integrate photos into a Blogger blog F.or Blogger, Joomla, MSN Live, Wordpress and many more. Free to use
Wordpress also provides an app for the IOS & Android which can also facilitate as well, as for the above apps, upload, text, html, photos, videos, and moderate/edit/reply to comments. For Blogger, Joomla, MSN Live, Wordpress and many more. Free to use
As one would expect, there is an app for Android users for Blogger, but not yet available for iPhones. Free to use.
This Is Another Option - MMS, TXT or Email
Another option if you cannot or choose not to use an app, is to use the phones facility to update a blog, via emailing, texting or Multimedia Messaging (MMS).
Using Blogger as an example you can;
Email - First, go to your specific blog you wish to update via email by selecting settings | email & configure your Mail-to-Blogger email address, choose if your post will publish immediately or save to publish later. Do not share this email address, otherwise anyone can post to your blog. Append the end of your posts with a # so as to not have emails become truncated and miss out on text.
MMS/SMS - You will need to register at go@blogger.com or to 256447 (most likely USA only) to attach to a specific blog. Otherwise, when you receive back your claim code, you will be given a new mobile blog, or choose to attach to an existing blog. Attach to an existing blog by first merging your new mobile blog at go.blogger.com and select your existing blog to merge both online and mobile blogging. Full instructions for using MMS or SMS blogging here
Costs are subject to service providers and your specific user contracts, Blogger does not charge you for MMS or SMS costs.
An Evolution Of Mobile Blogging
The evolution of blogging on the go is ever on the increase, as new Apps become available, new blogging platforms will appear to facilitate mobile blogging and there are ways to also capture, ujse and issue updates throuogh RSS feeds and Twitter microblogging as well.
Existing major platforms will provide even more ways to update blogs in the future. I am not currently aware of any pure mobile only platforms for blogging as yet, but I am sure that with this ever evolving form of communication in combination with the rise of social media, blogging will move out of its infancy and permeate a hardware platform with mobile devices. One can still easily update a blog not just with written words either, apps and other transmission forms allow for updating blogs with picture, video (as my demonstration video below shows) and links.
We may certainly see a remarkable rise in readership once again since the entry barrier is much lower (ie more people own phones nowadays than own tablets, laptops or desktop computers) and more people use their phones for internet use than computers.
If you have a blog and dont currently use your mobile or are not aware about reader reading your blog on their mobiles, now is the time to start looking into it. Oh, right here on HubPages is compatible with mobile browsing as well.
The Video Below Was Done Very Quickly
The time it has taken myself to record a video on my iPhone, load it onto my YouTube account and post it to this Hub, was done in about 5 minutes or less. Note the video is unedited, but over time and with practice and peoples video techniques evolve and improve, so will the time it takes to post extremely useful videos, direct from a mobile phone to a blog or lens, or Hub or an article site.
Why video? If it is to record a visit to a show, a movie review, after visiting a new restaurant, a trade show, a new comic book or game store opening, a HubPages meetup, its very useful to see how the person in the video feels about their review and relates to the audience. Reading an article is great but you can garner so much more, and become better informed with an accompanying video.
Chatkath 10 months ago
I just bookmarked this hub! I was going to do this the other day but decided not to, I figured that I might create another problem for myself, the Blackberry I have seems to have a few glitches already - probably because of me...none the less, it seems like a convenient way to capture thoughts and sites on the go! Thank you for sharing!