"Columbus?" is the headline of a blog post from a Pittsburgh blogger.

What does Columbus Ohio have in common with  New York, Los Angeles, London, Chicago, Rome, Madrid, Toronto, Houston, Washington, Atlanta, Paris, Seattle, San Diego, Austin Texas, Minneapolis, Denver, San Francisco, Portland Oregon, Dallas, Singapore, St. Louis, Jakarta, Brooklyn NY, Philadelphia, Mexico City, Montreal, Beijing, Moscow, Mumbai. 

"Blog Belt status" according to the story he quotes in Business Week.

Reaction by Pittsburgh blogger Mike Madison of Pittsblog:

 "Columbus?"

The lists are the usual large metro areas and wired and wireless meccas. And Columbus, Ohio, which comes in at number 30."

Business Week's Graphic of the Blog Belt  is described:

As Net connections spread, Web 2.0 services are expanding. On a recent day, these were the top 30 cities for blog postings and comments, divided into three tiers by levels of activity.

The full Business Week article - Children of the Web

The Business Week article is very long.  I have not fully digested it yet.   It was one day.  Maybe Columbus was particularly bloggy on that day. 

I am sure many in Cleveland, Cinci, Akron, Dayton, Toledo, Youngstown as well as Indianapolis, Detroit and others are saying "Columbus?"  World class blogging from Columbus? 

Columbus Ohio is a stop on Blog Tour USA  in July 2007.   

Photo of the Columbus Ohio Skyline Photo above is from Wikipedia.  "Skyline of Columbus, Ohio Photo shot by Derek Jensen (Tysto), 2006-01-23  I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby release it into the public domain. This applies worldwide. In case this is not legally possible:I grant anyone the right to use this work for any purpose, without any conditions, unless such conditions are required by law."  Thanks Derek

This blog is not going to be titled "Everything you always wanted to know about WordPress Blogs but were afraid to ask"  because I first want to distinguish between  WordPress.com and WordPress.org

Previously in this series:

Everything you always wanted to know about TypePad Blogs... 

Everything you always wanted to know about Blogger.com blogs...

Did you know there is a difference between WordPress.org and WordPress.com?  I blogged on my BlogPress.org for a number of months before I realized there is a difference.  Or maybe I knew there was a difference between the two when I decided on a Blogpress.org blog.

"To get started with WordPress, set it up on a web host for the most flexibility or get a free blog on WordPress.com." 

Here is the difference in the two WordPress.com vs. WordPress.org  Since it is a FAQ I must not be the only one who had the question.  Thanks to Jeff Link (who has a WordPress.com blog ) for sharing th link with me in the comments somewhere here on ActiveRain.

There is a WordPress group here on ActiveRain.  The group is both WordPress.org users and WordPress.com users which can be confusing.   

This post was made directly to the CBR Tech Users Group on Active Rain so does not show up on my blog.  I don't get Active Rain points for it either.  I don't believe it will show up in Google (Yahoo etc.)  either.  Purely out of the goodness of my heart and to help those who want to blog as part of the May 2007 presentation at the board about SEO and my itty bitty part of that presentation about blogging.   

The ActiveRain CBR Tech Users group.

If you are a real estate professional  and reading this but are not a member of ActiveRain - Please join There are links to Members Only entries in the series about the different blogging platforms.

I've  added this post to the "My other blog is..."  group and the WordPress group.

Stay tuned I will do separate entries about WordPress.com and WordPress.org

                  OK I stole this title from  "Everything you always wanted to know about TypePad.com blogs but were afraid to ask..."  I wrote that title too so I can borrow it.  I found a Typepad expert on ActiveRain so the  "Everything you always wanted to know about TypePad.com blogs but were afraid to ask..." entry is probably a little more helpful than this one.

Maybe Mr. Blogger.com or Ms. Blogger.com will step forward and help out about the features and benefits of blogging on Blogger.com

Or maybe Blogger.com blogs are so easy to use you don't need the numerous 'How To's' that TypePad Guru Cheryl Johnson has written for those who have a real estate blog on that platform.    

If you decide to blog and want to use a Blogger Blog you will be in good company. I'm able to find some great examples of Central Ohio blogger's using Blogger / Blogspot blogs as a real estate blogs:

Teresa Butler's  Columbus Ohio Real Estate Blog

Central Ohioans' William Robbins Metro Agent  

Ohioan Belinda Augustus' HAH Hide-A-Way Hills Blog 

I believe the one Columbus Ohio real etate blog that was on all the lists when I started blogging was a Blogger.com blog, it has not been updated since April 2006 so I am not going to give it a link here.

Do you know of other Active Blogger.com real estate blogs in Central Ohio or outside? If you are a Blogger.com blogger add your link to your Blogger.com blog in the comments, please.  Often leaving a link to your blog in comments would be seen as comment spam... but "I'm asking" for it here.   

I looked for Blogger / Blogspot resources to watch and read on Active Rain.  I don't see an ActiveRain groupon Active Rain for Blogger.com bloggers.  I know there are lots of Active Rain Members who have Blogger/ Blogspot blogs. Many belong to the "My other blog is..." group. 

I had a Blogger.com blog once.  I started it in early 2006 and abandoned it shortly after.  Sometimes I can find it sometimes I can't.   You'd think I could write more about a blog that I had personal experience with.  I can't even tell you why I stopped blogging there either...  so I do apologize for the headline being kind of a come on, but there are some links below to some Blogger.com resources you could have found via the website or via Google.com

Blogger.com blogs are free.  http://www.blogger.com/  

Blogger.com says: "Learn About Blogging. Then, Create Your Free Blog In Five Minutes"  as I recall it was very simple to set up and it looked good fast. 

"The Story of Blogger" from Blogger.com

"Blogger was started by a tiny company in San Francisco called Pyra Labs in August of 1999. This was in the midst of the dot-com boom. But we weren't exactly a VC-funded, party-throwing, foosball-in-the-lobby-playing, free-beer-drinking outfit. (Unless it was other people's free beer.)"

Which changed when Google bought them...

"Now we're a small (but slightly bigger than before) team in Google focusing on helping people have their own voice on the web and organizing the world's information from the personal perspective."

I have always been confused about Blogspot or Blogspot.com whether it is synonymous with Blogger.com if the blogs were Blogspot.com when it was Pyra labs... whether Blogspot was another competitor that was acquired by the company (Pyra or Google.com)  the url of some? all? Blogger.com blogs says Blogspot.com.  One feature that would be nice is the "BlogThis" feature on the Google toolbar that allows Blogger.com blogs to post links directly to their blogs.  Blogger.com has been updated a couple of times. There was a newer version of Blogger.com that was introduced in 2006, if I understand it correctly you can still do the original version without becoming a member of Google.com but in order to use the newer version you do need a Google.com membership (free.)

Blogger Help on Google Groups including starter info

The Official Buzz from Blogger

Wikipedia about Blogger.com

If you are not yet a member of ActiveRain please Join  if you work in the real estate industry.  There were no members only posts in this blog but there are in others in the series. This series of blogs for the CBR (Columbus Board of REALTORS®) Tech Users group are written in the group so do not appear on my ActiveRain blog. This entry is part of my itty bitty part of the presentation to the Tech Users Committe about SEO.

This is posted directly to the CBR Group so does not show up on my blog.

                                                   Real Living has a blog.  The blog has an entry yesterday that Real Living has an entry in Wikipedia...Wikipedia is so web 2.0   Wikipedia's Real Living encyclopedia entry

Of course Coldwell Banker has an encyclopedia entry in Wikipedia but local Coldwell Banker King Thompson doesn't have a Wikipedia encyclopedia entry yet.  Re/Max Intl has a Wikipedia entry, I don't even want to try to look up all the Central Ohio Re/Max offices.  Century 21 has an encyclopedia article on Wikipedia.  ERA has one too. 

Keller Williams has an encyclopedia entry in Wikipedia! No that's the musician.  Actually by searching Keller Williams Realty on Wikipedia I was able to find an encyclopedia entry about Keller Williams Realty.  At the top it says:

"To meet Wikipedia's quality standards and comply with our neutral point of view policy, this article or section may require cleanup. The current version of the article or sectionreads more like an advertisement than an encyclopedic article."

Quality statndards? Look at a lot of what is in Wikipedia about real estate... the bubble bloggers..have hijacked...  oh well... There are 26 US real estate companies with encyclopedia entries on Wikipedia, today including GMAC, Windemere, Brio!  I did not go to see if any other real estate company entries on Wikipedia  were not written as "encyclopedic articles."

Back to Real Living.  Real Living has videos on YouTube .... how web 2.0