A family blog is where each member of an immediate and/or extended family can post to a ‘community’ blog for the enjoyment of all.  Often it’s in the form of pics of the grandkids doing silly things around the yard and pics or videos from someone’s latest vacation.  It’s a great way to stay in touch and beats the heck out of hassling with getting pictures developed and sending them by land mail.

The only thing you have to do on your end is add them as ‘users’.  Give them an easy password they can remember (or one they’ve requested) and set their privilege rating to ‘Author’.  That will allow them to log in to the Dashboard and make posts, but not alter any of the settings or anyone else’s posts.

The address to the Dashboard is your domain address with a "wp-admin" stuck on the end, like so:

http://www.yourdomain.com/wp-admin

The first time they click on the link they’ll be asked for their name & password.  Tell them to check the ‘Remember Me’ box and it won’t bug them again.  Also remind them to add the Dashboard to their Favorites, or save an icon to the Desktop.

The only hitch is that you can’t expect others to become a skilled blogmaster such as yourself, so here’s an easy-to-follow page that will walk them through the basics.  Send them the link and tell them to bookmark it for future reference or put the icon on the Desktop.  And, once on that page, they can always use the sidebar for additional information, like streaming video.

Speaking of which, you’ll probably want to install the ‘FLV Embed’ plugin even if you don’t post videos, yourself.  Someone’s going to want it eventually.  If the gang’s into MP3 songs, install the Yahoo player on the ‘Adding media’ page.