Our blogging platform has to feel right.
Plugins, SEO, User Management, Twitter feeds, Facebook feeds, Import/Export, Reports, Built-in comments, Responsive, Mobile-ready… all of those and many more, are features included in most blogging platforms these days. Yet when you talk to the people who know about this stuff, there is one common feature that your blog can’t do without: content.
One thing I have learnt in the last few months is that when you are trying to write a blog for the first time and in a language which is not your mother tongue, you need to surround yourself with insipiring stuff. For example, I am far from being an Apple fan, but I have to admit that purchasing a Macbook Air has probably been one of the best purchases we have ever done. It just feels right. Using Ghost as a blooging platform just feels right.
And not because of its great features, like the superb editor, or the incredibly fast, friendly and helpful Support. All of that helps, but what really makes a difference is to understand the why.
Why Ghost
The first time I heard about Ghost was when my friend Guille started his latest blog, Django The Dog. And when Guille says something is good, it probably is.
So I had a look at their website and things started to make sense. The following video caught my attention:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/johnonolan/ghost-just-a-blogging-platform/widget/video.html
And what finally convinced me to give it a go was a post from John O’Nolan, founder of Ghost, where he talks about what it means to be non profit.
Ghost has been made for love not for profit […] Do we want to make millions and sell to Facebook or do we want to make something that is genuilly good?
Suddenly, understanding why Ghost was created and what its purpose is became more powerful that an extensive feature set. Sometimes, all you need is to understand why.
Easy to setup
Within 5 minutes I had Ghost running on my computer.
That’s it, seriously.
Custom themes
Ghost comes by a default them called Casper. Looking back, Casper would have probably been more than enough for our needs.
However, as many other Ghost users, I too wanted to experiment a bit with theme development. I have never been too much of an artist myself and a few voices wisely suggested that perhaps I should just let it go. Little they knew that stubbornness is my middle name.
The marketplace was the place to start searching for inspiration. I fell in love with many themes, in particular these two caught my attention for their simplicity:
A few thousand cups of coffee later, our theme was born. In the eyes of the experienced web developer I’ve probably made a million mistakes and I am sure that bugs are creeping everywhere. But I feel inmensely proud of it, with bugs and all 🙂
After the trial period expired, I switched to Ghost (Pro). When it comes to hosting a blog, there are cheaper alternatives out there. But as I said before, sometimes things just have to feel right. And that is exactly how being subscribed to Ghost (Pro) feels like.
ribbon and beard 