What Platform Does Your Blog Run On?
November 30, 2007
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I’ve been blogging on and off for about four years now, and in that time have tried a few different platforms for blogging. Not all of them, but I’ve got a bit of experience with a few, and what I’d like to find out from my readers is which platform you blog on, and more importantly, why do you use that platform?
When I started out, it was on Blogger (even before it was purchased by Google) and for the longest time, it wasn’t really all that bad. Maybe this was because I hadn’t had the chance to try anything else, but I still look back kind of fondly on that blog….
When I registered rodtempleton.net, I decided to move over to this relatively new setup I’d heard of called WordPress. I’m still there, and currently have three different blogs that are hosted (canucknation.ca and this blog being the other two), in addition to a couple of others on wordpress.com that have gone a little dormant over time. If you’re a new blogger and not looking to monetize right away, have a look at wordpress.com.
The thing that I love about WordPress is the fact that it’s very simple to setup if you’ve got your own MySQL database installed on your host. They call it a five minute install, but the only time that it took me five minutes was on the first blog I set up. I messed up the configuration a little simply due to the fact that I was over-anxious and didn’t read the instructions completely.
The plug-ins and support from the WordPress community is second to none in my opinion.
I also have a little experience with Movable Type, as this is what’s used on the Metroblogging Vancouver site that I used to participate more regularly on. Maybe it’s just the fact that I’m used to WordPress, but I find MT more than a little confusing to use. It’s not nearly as intuitive as WordPress.
Or if you really want to be different, be like Tyler, and code your whole blog yourself. There’s nothing on his site that he hasn’t coded by hand. It kind of looks like a WordPress site, but it’s not.
So here’s what it all comes down to. What blogging platform do you use and why? Select an answer in the poll and if you want to explain why, feel free to use the comments.
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November 30th, 2007 at 9:24 am
The choice for me was quite easy. I saw that WP and Blogger were the most talked about and between them there was a whole lot more info about WP. So I went for self-hosted WP
November 30th, 2007 at 9:48 am
It really does work out for the best, doesn’t it?
November 30th, 2007 at 9:51 am
I started off with WordPress.com. I found it very easy to use and soon moved to my own self-hosted WP. I’ve since set up a number of sites for others using WP as it’s very easy for someone who knows very little to be able to update and maintain their site. With the vast array of plugins there isn’t much you can’t do using WP!
November 30th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
I sometimes wish I went with WordPress right off the bat because I am having some troubles with some programming aspects of certain blog services but I love my custom script. I can update it and do whatever I want with it. If I break it, I know pretty quick what it was that broke and I can fix it.
I don’t have to look at running updates or patches to things either.
Creating a custom blog has also helped me learn more about blogging, SEO techniques and learn new things with PHP, MySQL, Ajax etc… Its been an awesome experience and continues to be a fun learning tool too.
November 30th, 2007 at 10:07 pm
I’m a new blogger. I Litterally have 20 days of blogging under my belt. My blog is hosted on Blogger. (www.blueinkbooks.com) I picked Blogger simply because I wanted to put AdSense on it. Maybe this is the rookie in me but I thought (and still think) this is one of the great ways to monetize a blog. Can you put AdSense on WP?
December 1st, 2007 at 4:29 am
We’ve just moved from a Typepad site to our own domain with Wordpress. Typepad was great, but there were a lot of things I couldn’t do and it cost more.
December 1st, 2007 at 6:19 am
I’ve had several blogs over the years, none of which lasted more than a few weeks. Now, I’m running a self-hosted WordPress. It’s brilliant. I love it and it would take quite a bit of convincing for me to use anything else.
December 1st, 2007 at 8:33 am
Thanks for yoyour comment, Janet. I like being able to have my own control over everything on my site. But I do still have a couple of sites on wordpress.com and they’re perfect for sites that you don’t plain on monetizing. Plus you get the WP security and get to test a lot of new features before they get added to the wordpress.org distributions.
December 1st, 2007 at 8:37 am
Yeah, security is one thing that you’re not going to have to worry about, and there’s no doubt that you don’t have any constraints that WordPress theme designers might come up against.
December 1st, 2007 at 8:41 am
Luke, thanks very much for the comments. If you use wordpress.com to host your blog, they don’t allow any monetization at this point in time. If you use a self-hosted blog (download from wordpress.org) you can put AdSense on it. It’s a very simple setup, but if you don’t have a place to host it, wp.com or Blogger would be better.
Obviously I’m partial to WordPress due to the control that you have over it.
Keep up the bloging. Cheers.
December 1st, 2007 at 8:44 am
Tim: I think you’ll be quite amazed at the number of ways to personalize WordPress and make it as unique as you want. And the support from the community is unbelievable.
Thanks very much for your comment.
December 1st, 2007 at 8:45 am
I’m like you, Eric. I can’t think of anything that any of the other platforms have that would make me switch away from WordPress.
December 1st, 2007 at 3:58 pm
Self hosted WP. I started on blogger - good price - free -easy for a newbie. When i got serious I realised I loose any PR I had when I left blogger so I left sooner rather than later! WP just has so much development, so many themes, - Iget the impression they are a huge % of the market now
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December 28th, 2007 at 8:37 am
I am one of the rare people out there who uses Joomla for my self-hosted blog. I just love the CMS — it’s great, has a wonderful support community and can grow as my site does.
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