It must be the technology bug in me or just the man in me wanting to play with new toys. In my quest to explore different blogging platforms, I have tried my hand at Blogger, WordPress.com and self hosted WordPress. Typepad required me to provide credit card information to sign-up and other platforms just didn’t seem popular enough. I searched and researched the comparisons between Blogger and WordPress. Most comparison posts compare Blogger and self hosted WordPress. However I found this really useful post that compares Blogger and WordPress.com, which in my mind is the true comparison.
My personal preference is now with Blogger as compared to Wordpres.com, if you want to get started quickly and without any expense. In addition to the comparison in the link above, some additional comparisons are:
- Blogger allows Javascript code in widgets. This allows you to add more variety of widgets on your blog. WordPress.com doesn’t allow Javascript widgets.
- Blogger is Adsense ready (read ‘it allows Javascript code’). WordPress.com doesn’t allow advertising. Now rest assured, getting your first $100 from Google is going to take you a few years, but still no harm is trying. You need to earn minimum $100 before you get any cash from Google.
- Blogger allows you to add new templates which WordPress.com doesn’t allow. You are limited to the themes provided by WordPress.com.
- Blogger provides email alerts for comments (and posts too). WordPress.com (and self hosted WordPress too actually) doesn’t provide any email alerts for new comments.
- Blogger has an in-built poll widget. WordPress.com doesn’t have a poll widget.
So there you are. In my view, get started with Blogger. The other criteria for choosing between the two could also be the availability of the blog name. You might need a blog name that may be available on a platform not of your choice.
However, notwithstanding the technology debate about the blogging platform, I finally figured that it is the CONTENT that matters most. Do I have the content on my blog that will pull readers or which is personally satisfying to me? That is far more important than the blogging platform!!!
Thanks for this post. I’m deciding right now which platform to use for a new blog. I have a WordPress blog, but it seems to complicated for me to modify. I have no training in this stuff. Sometimes it seems I need to learn a new language to work with wordpress. WordPress seems to assume easy familiarity with HTML.
Tēnā koe e Manish
I agree with you on this, "the content on my blog . . .
. . . that is far more important than the blogging platform!!!" Magic!
Catchya later
A small correction that both self hosted wordpress does allow comment notification and Polldaddy was acquired by Automatic and included as plugin in both self hosted wordpress and wordpress.com.
And yes Content is always the King.