As I posted last time, I am going to evaluate several “Web 2.0” sites/tools with an eye to how they could be used for a church or other ministry as a way to build their Internet presence. See that post for a listing of all the different tools I am going to be looking at.
A starting point for any organization wishing to maintain a presence on the Internet is some sort of place to call “home” that can be accessed via a Google search on your organization’s name or web address. One way this can be accomplished is, of course, to create your own web site and either manage it on your own server or pay a service to host it for you, purchase a web domain name, and hope that Google can find your site. This can get expensive and, at a minimum, requires at least some expertise in web site development and possibly server administration. An alternative to this, however, would be to take advantage of one of the free (or low cost) blogging tools that are now available. At sites such as TypePad, WordPress, or Blogger, you can quickly create nice looking web pages and manage content easily. Very little training is required to use these sites, and the results can be quite impressive. Further, all of these tools give you the ability to be available via a Google search, making your information instantly accessible to the world. They also let you pick a web site name that can be at least something close to your own organization’s name.
In the original post by Seth Godin that started all this, he recommends using TypePad. I spent some time looking at TypePad and it is a very nice tool that allows you to customize the look of your site and create some static web pages as well as a blog. In fact, TypePad even markets their tool directly to churches. From what I can tell, using TypePad, Blogger, or WordPress would work just fine as a first web presence, with the nod to WordPress for the best features and lower price (free). For comparisons of blogging tools, see these Google search results.
My recommendation for a ministry looking to begin their web presence would be to think about creating an account with WordPress as a place to get started. Use its ability to create static pages for basic information about your ministry and then blog regularly to give people updates on what you are doing. As your sites matures and your needs grow, you may then need to spend some time and money to develop a “real” web site – though you could continue your blogging at the WordPress site. I would also recommend purchasing your own web domain name at this point, if not earlier.
Once you have established your initial presence using one of these tools, be sure you update it often and give people a reason to come back. And don’t just update it with blog entries: using other Web 2.0 tools you can update it with pictures, videos, podcasts, and events. I’ll be looking at tools to do these things in my next few posts.
Lessons From Babel 