Longtime readers of AriWriter may recall that I migrated from Blogspot to Wordpress in October 2008. (Here’s background on why and how I made the move.)
While the majority of the blogs I read are built upon Blogspot (also known as the ubiquitious Blogger), Wordpress (both the free dot-com and paid dot-org versions), and Typepad, there are other options. I’ve seen blogs coded in Joomla, Drupal, Wordframe, and Expression Engine. Here’s a recent snapshot I found online:
In February 2007, Darren Rowse asked five questions on his blog about platforms and their users. At the time of writing this sentence, he received over 120 responses.
I’m curious what’s changed in the past two years so I’m reproducing his questions here:
- Which blog platform do you use?
- Why do you use it?
- What do you love about it?
- What do you wish they’d improve?
- What type of blogger would benefit from using it?
Thanks in advance for sharing.
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I’m using WordPress. I like it better than Blogger, which I had two blogs on a few years ago. I switched to WordPress because it allowed tagging and a lot of plugins, etc.
I’m looking at SquareSpace because I’m tired of the biggest drawbacks of WordPress — piss poor documentation (like, you can’t download a mega manual in PDF to search, it’s page after page of linked HTML nonsense that’s poorly indexed), a CSS-happy community of developers and enthusiasts (if I wanted to code, I’d be a coder), and slim pickings for plug-and-play clients for Mac and BlackBerry, my chosen platforms.
Nevertheless, WordPress blogs are out there a lot and that means you can get great tips from people and there’s a wide variety of themes for free or reasonable prices and a slew of plugins to personalize a WordPress site. So maybe I’ll stay.
Typepad looked less friendly, most costly, and more annoying when I was looking into it a few years ago.
Gib´s last blog post..brief tweets weekly (2009-05-08)
Which blog platform do you use?
I was a Blogger girl from 2003-2007 and then I switched to WordPress.org. Now I have two WordPress.org sites and two WordPress.com.
Why do you use it?
Good question. I’m not really sure. I guess because it has a strong community and there’s a good variety of themes and plugins to choose from.
What do you love about it?
I love that I can focus on content and the fun bits of CSS rather than the difficult and scary code I’d have to write and maintain if I were doing it all in PHP on my own. Plus, I don’t know PHP!
What do you wish they’d improve?
I wish it were easier to find plugins and themes that are fully AA-accessible. It looks terrible that I’m promoting accessible web design and my own site isn’t quite ‘there’ yet. I just need more time to play with it.
What type of blogger would benefit from using it?
Anyone can benefit from a WP.com hosted blog. It couldn’t be easier. Perhaps finding your way around the settings could be better, but it’s learnable.
WP.org is for anyone that wants to create a more custom look with design and layout. I really recommend creating your own child theme based on Thematic.
Lisa Rex´s last blog post..The value of face-to-face networking
I prefer the wordpress.org platform. It’s extremely flexible and can really be used as a simple CMS. The only thing I wish they would improve on is a better organized plugin list, sometimes it takes a while to find one, that has what you need.
Which blog platform do you use? WordPress
Why do you use it? I use it because I can download the main source code, and since I am familiar with PHP programming, it gives me the opportunity to customize the functionality and related themes.
What do you love about it? Definitely the customization options, support from the tons of other people using the WordPress platform, tons of free and premium themes available for the design, and easy plug-in options for functionality.
What do you wish they’d improve? If they could do the theme installation like the plug-in installation, where you could just search for free and premium themes, and install them through the admin panel.
What type of blogger would benefit from using it? Anyone, from the simple blogger who just wants to sign up for the free version on WordPress.com to the advanced, problogger who wants to have the ability to host it on their domain and customize it to their heart’s desire. And even for non-bloggers, web designers can use the WordPress platform as a content management system for their site.
~ Kristi
Kikolani´s last blog post..Getting Started with the Thesis Theme & Resources
I like using wordpress, and although I have no experience with other platforms, I don’t see myself switching. It’s easy to set up, offers a lot of options and plugins and so many other people use it that I can always get advice from them.
Wordpress for sure.
Not only does it have awesome features and plugins.
WordPress facilitates a whole bunch of things for getting found-
like the pinging and tagging.
It also allows for trackbacks and this is great for you because you can easily get a link back to your site with trackbacks.
A friend of mine said – Wordpress is HTML on steroids- LOL.
So yes Wordpress is awesome,
All the best,
Eren Mckay
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I’m new to blogging, but I really like WordPress. Blogspot/blogger is too inflexible. My experience is TypePad on other people’s blogs (see Dave Barry’s 24 blog) is that it is slow and very persnickety. I highly recommend the Thesis theme for maximum driveability. As I am not a php or css person (well, I can manage a little css), its point and click features are just amazing. Yes, you must pay for Thesis. It’s worth every penny. I haven’t explored Joomla much, but I have a client on it and it seems very awkward. I hope this helps with your poll!
Yelwrose´s last blog post..Beating the Buzz Word Fail Whale
My favorite blog platform is still wordpress(paid one) since you an do anything with it without worrying that your account would be deleted.
paulubiadas´s last blog post..Miscellaneos Ramblings
I love Wordpress but there are easy ways to get yourself up and running on Blogger.
Which brings me to a question, how did you get the comment field for Twitter id into your posts? I love that.
Thanks!
Jeff Cutler´s last blog post..Jonathan Coulton Interview – in Five Parts
Definitely Wordpress is my current favorite. That said, I have a Blogger blog, a Vox Blog, a Tumblr blog, and I post stuffs other places as well.
Wordpress is probably the best supported, has the largest savvy community and it’s gosh darn easy to manage.
Todd Jordan´s last blog post..Social Networking for Zombies
Seems like everyone prefers Wordpress. Interesting. No Typepadders?
I use Blogger for “SocialFishing…” and I heart it. No other platform allows me to play with widgets and code to my heart’s content (even tho I keep doing things that go a bit pear-shaped). Our mains SociaFish site is on Wordpress, and I defer to the experts on that one. It is head and shoulders above the rest in terms of features, but even when I move my blog over I will keep the old blogger one to play with.
p.s. You should have done a poll, would have been easier to track, no?
Maddie Grant´s last blog post..09NTC: Energize Your Conference Through Social Media
I use self-hosted Wordpress. I love how flexible it is; how you can find a plugin for pretty well anything you want to do.
Both Typepad and Blogger seem to be stuck on “community” and remind me of my Livejournal days. Leaving a comment is convenient if you also use Typepad or Blogger but often it’s difficult otherwise. (I hate that Google wants to associate my comment with my Google account and link to my profile there – give me Name, Email, URL and Comment fields anyday!
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1. Which blog platform do you use?
I mainly use Wordpress as it is an easy install from my hosting service Bluehost. I have just recently started playing around with Squarespace though.
2. Why do you use it?
I use Wordpress because it is what I started with and have been using for about 2 years. The reason I started with though was because it is easy to get a site up, lots of plugins, and its free.
3. What do you love about it?
Free, easy to use, and customizable if you know some CSS.
4. What do you wish they’d improve?
Wish there were more themes that were even easier to customize and you didn’t have to worry about plugin compatibility. That is once of the reasons I’ve decided to try Squarespace.
5. What type of blogger would benefit from using it?
If you do not need to do much customization I’d use Wordpress. I’ve spent hours of trial and error moving modules around. For easy drag-n-drop and no CSS issues to worry about, I’d recommend Squarespace.
New from James: Squarespace iPhone App coming soon
Which blog platform do you use?
I start with Blogger and still using it.
Why do you use it?
Blogger is easy to use, it’s free, it suits me and it has everything I need.
What do you love about it?
Blogger is the first platform that I knew offers monetisation. I still appreciate that.
What do you wish they’d improve?
None that I can think of right now.
What type of blogger would benefit from using it?
Students or anyone who can’t afford their own domain.