Ok, so I've tried asking a few friends, but it seems to be turning out a bit less helpful than I expected, so I decided I'd post my issue on here and see where that gets me.
I have a website, and recently I updated the whole main part of it. You can see it at
www.horror-junkies.com to get an idea of what it looks like.
I also have a blog for the website. The blog is actually the most important part of what my website is. It's like the heart of the entire operation. Without it, I wouldn't even have a website. The thing is, I haven't updated the layout/theme for the blog since I started it back in 2007. With the redesign of the website, I want to update the blog as well. I've narrowed down my options to two different things, and now I'm at the part where I can't decide on which one to use. There are some decent pros and cons to each option I have, and I can't decide.
1- Tumblr. I use Tumblr due to the fact that it serves as a third social networking outlet for my website (Just like Facebook and Twitter). I have a decent fanbase on Tumblr. Tumblr is a blogging website though, so using it means I have to re-post each article I add to my website on Tumblr. It's a hassle.
I found a theme that I'm in love with on Tumblr, you can go to
transcender.stylehatch.co/ to view this theme. I would take the theme and use a black background so I can use my website's logo with it, keep the tables and everything gray, and change the links to a dark red color. If I do this, I would completely eliminate the blog for my website, and use Tumblr as the new heart of my website, since Tumblr IS a blogging website. This would solve my need to update the look of my blog, and it would also entirely remove the hassle of updating Tumblr after doing new articles, as I would just begin doing the articles directly on Tumblr, which is something I'm extremely happy about.
Tumblr is also extremely simple to blog with, and as I mentioned, I have a decently-sized fanbase already on Tumblr. The way things are now, they don't get to see articles until weeks after they've already come out, because it takes me so long to post new content to my blog, then add it to the website, then add it to Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. I feel I'm letting them down, and this option would really help things out and get me more fans.
The theme I like is $50, but it's a ONE time charge, then I own it forever. I can also "promote" posts on Tumblr, which uses arrows and text of my choice to draw attention to my post when users are browsing other posts from other users, which is a great help to get me new fans/readers.
2- LiveJournal. Anybody who grew up around the same time as I did hopefully knows what this is. It's a "journal" type of website, but it basically works like blogs. Due to the fact that it was popular back in the Myspace days, just like Myspace, LiveJournal has basically become outdated (At least from the popularity that it used to have). Also, it's obvious that way less people use LiveJournal compared to Tumblr. The thing is, I found a few pros to LiveJournal.
LiveJournal offers something that Tumblr does not offer: The ability to comment on posts. I like the ability to comment on posts because I don't want people to turn away from my website or get frustrated if they want to comment, try to, and can't do it. Tumblr lets you like or re-blog posts but not comment really. I think you can on the theme for Tumblr that I listed above, but that's about it. On LiveJournal, with any theme, you can comment.
To use any decent themes, you need $2-per-month premium service on LiveJournal (Much cheaper than the $50, although I understand that the $2 adds up over time). I found a theme I LOVE and it has a layout of everything on the page that I love, you can go to
www.horrorjunkies.livejournal.com to view it. I set it up to have a post from my website as an example post. I love this theme ALMOST as much as the one I listed for Tumblr. The other cool thing is they have a bunch of themes for Halloween. Halloween is obviously a major holiday to horror freaks. Well, I could always change the theme for a few days or weeks during October. Plus, I feel that whether or not I make the Tumblr theme I listed above black/red, this LiveJournal theme has a much more "horror" feel to it. I also just enjoy the way the theme looks.
Another downside though is that it's not Tumblr, and as I mentioned, if it's not Tumblr, I then have the hassle of always re-posting stuff on Tumblr later (It may seem easy enough, but trust me. When you spend hours typing stuff up the first time, when you're done, you just don't wanna restart at the beginning. It's a huge buzzkill).
I'm really torn at the moment, I don't know what to do! I also have been told by at least two people that they enjoy one theme, and then they explained to me that I should pick what they liked because "It's not what you like, it's what the readers enjoy, and being a reader, I believe other readers will enjoy this theme". So I know that it's not up to what I like. But at the same time, I believe that I have more sense of what would look right with the website than what a reader may have, so I'm trying to pick what relates best to the topic of horror while still fitting nicely with how the main website at
www.horror-junkies.com looks.
Please help! Any opinions are appreciated.
