I have no reasons to complain about Blogger. I'm, mercifully, free of comment spam and I have no complaints about their reliability, etc.
However, they get a lot of bad press. I'm assuming this means that those who have tried other platforms have found them superior.
I am about to start up a couple of other blogs - one to capture my deep insights into efficient commuting and one to allow me to speak more freely about politics - and so this is a good time to consider my choice of platform.
Thoughts?
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7 comments:
Now we all know that I am not someone who is overtly pro-Microsoft, but I must say I have been impressed with my MSN Space.
I cannot compare it to the other blog implementations out there - that'll be your job ;) - but it looks good, has some neat photo album features (if you want an outlet for all your Reflectoporn), and is very customisable.
My experience with MSN Spaces has been a very positive one, and I think you should include it in your fiddlings.
And I await your Design Patterns for Modern Life blog with eager anticipation :)
I've been wondering whether I should separate out my photographic and life ponderings from my technical ones. So far I'm resisting that temptation.
Do not use MSN Spaces.
If you want something hosted, I don't know what to suggest. If you want something you can run on a server yourself, Wordpress is the obvious choice.
I have many complaints about Blogger - it's just so primitive, and as James Governor as others points out, has not been getting as much love from Google as it could have had. I really need to sort out my template, too - the one I chose is really too narrow. I'm not sure how easy it would be for me to move off it.
Anyway, I will follow this saga with interest, and immediately subscribe to your new feeds so that I can comment on the quality of your graphics in the future.
Andy,
Was your MSN Spaces comment intended to provoke? It seems strange that a guy who comes across as largely intelligent would make such a statement without any qualification at all.
Please fill us in and give us some level-headed reasoning behind your views here. Or put a cork in it, your choice.
I wouldn't recommend MSN spaces; certainly its blogs look a lot nicer than the ones Blogger, but it seems to be a bit unstable: I often see the 'space not available' message. Also it seems a bit heavy on the client side: you can't scroll the page until the slide-display control is loaded.
I have browsed many more MSN spaces than Blogger sites, but if blog-providers have distinct cultures then Blogger is higher, MSN lower and MySpace lower still. The culture of the blogging platform is probably a function of the ease of posting multi-media files and smileys.
Lee, various reasons. And please don't take any of them as personal sleights, because clearly they are not.
My first instinctive reaction is that it's Microsoft... although to be fair, I'm less averse to them than I used to be. Must be old age catching up on me.
Secondly, you have to have a passport to use it, and if you've avoided signing up for one (I admit that I haven't), you'll have to do it.
Thirdly I don't need the photo album, music choices, and other features - my blog is primarily a diary at the moment. Although I can see the value of being able to build more of a personal presence / homepage, I don't want Microsoft to own my ability to do so. I don't particularly want Google/Blogger to do so, either, so that's not a vote for Blogger.
The MSN Messenger integration with Spaces is possibly useful, if you use that product.
The themes are pretty much as limited as the Blogger ones, so I'm not sure there's much benefit there.
Does Spaces support any of the third-party blog posting apps like w.bloggar? I don't know, so I can't comment. I'd want any blogging platform I use to support a client.
So there are my reasons. Frankly I'm less than impressed with any of the main blog hosting providers. I'd like to have the time and bandwidth to setup my own Wordpress-based site again, but I don't have it right now.
a guy who comes across as largely intelligent
To quote Richard's response to a comment I made on a previous entry, I'm *so* misunderstood.
Thanks for your thoughts, everyone. Lee.... your second comment was a bit harsh!
I guess a "blog backup" service would be nice... and then I wouldn't need to bother... I could just use Blogger again as the path of least resistance and then migrate (perhaps) later on?
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