Design Tools:  

There aren't really design tools with this blog software program. The focus is on content, so your level of design is limited to whether or not you want a banner and what color the background might be of that banner.

Write a title, add tags and begin blogging. It really is just that easy. The editor is of the basic rich-text variety. If you have trouble adding media, there are help links right there above the editor.

Image size uploads are limited to 2MB.

You can only customize the banner and the text color/background colors – and have a userpic or embed a banner pic. There is an HTML editor you can use if you want to embed something custom within a post or post a video file.

Open is different because it is article-driven, though you can still have your personal blog here. They encourage you to blog about your passions

If you can’t think of your own tags, they have included a handy drop-down menu of common tags. You can also add your own tags to someone else’s article on Open Salon – if you need to find the entry in the future you can just call up the tag.

The rich text editor is extremely basic. The only text options are bold, italic, super or subscript. Paragraph formatting, headings and numbered or bullet lists are there. Undo, anchor text, insert image and cleanup messy code are aligned next to edit HTML source, insert horizontal ruler, remove formatting, toggle guidelines and insert custom character.
 

Publishing and Tracking Tools:  

Cross-posting is easy with EasyJournal - cross-post your current blog into Open Salon by using the import feature. To access the feature, go to the "Edit Account" section in the top-right hand drop-down menu, and click on "Import". You'll be prompted to enter the feed URL associated with the blog you're trying to import. You will also be given the option to import all or just a few posts, import drafts, and customize assigned dates. Future posts will then automatically be published on Open Salon once it is entered into the feed.

Note: Open Salon only supports full-text RSS 2.0 and Atom 1.0 feeds. They don't guarantee other formats -- including photo feeds -- will import without errors.

The search box is located at the top of every screen. The search looks for posts, people and tags. You can refine your results by selecting to search only within these categories. In addition, you can sort your results by date or relevance.

There is a spam filter for the in-site messaging system. It is trained to recognize unsolicited commercial emails.

Here's how it works:

1. Commercial spam will be filtered into the spam folder that lives in your inbox.
2. You can mark as "spam" messages that come into your Inbox if they are, in fact, not messages you want. The more you do this, the filter learns what to let through.
3. You can also go into the spam folder and mark a message as not spam.

Important: By manually labeling messages as spam you are training the spam filter.

Software/Hosting:  

Everything is free on Open Salon, though they do have an interesting reward system going on. They call it Tippem and it's made possible by a partnership with Revolution Money Exchange. You can actually tip other writers if you feel they deserve it. Revolution Money Exchange is a peer-to-peer payment service that allows you to send and receive money with no fees amongst account holders. Once you join Open Salon you can create your account with Revolution Money Exchange and start receiving tips for creating great content. Whenever you see the Tippem button on a blog post, that means you can tip the author of that post.

Tech Support/Help:  

Open Salon has a long list of FAQs, though they are not searchable. You just have to scan the questions to find your issue.

You can also email the Open Salon support staff.

Open Salon has a built-in audience and a curated cover page but not much more in the way of features. If you are a writer looking for an automatic audience to appreciate your musings in an unfussy, uncomplicated interface Open Salon might be just for you. But it's also free and there's no pressure to buy anything so if you join and decide you don't like it, it's just as easy to unjoin.