When I started blogging,I didn’t know about WordPress and created my blog on Blogger.Ankur suggested me to try out wordpress as it is undoubtedly a better blogging platform.I rejected wordpress at that time for reasons I don’t remember.After more than 1 year of taking this decision,I’m proud of it.Although WordPress is great,WP.com has some restrictions which are a big problem for me at least.Here’s a short description of these limitations-
Using your own domain
Blogger allows you to use your own domain for your blog free of cost.This is perfect for people like me,who don’t intend to buy hosting for some time.On the other hand,wordpress offers this service as an upgrade and charges a monthly fee for it.Basically,unless or until you can afford/get your own hosting and use WP on it,forget about your own domain.There’s no point paying wordpress more than your domain registrar as you will still be subject to other restrictions.
AdSense
The WordPress policies don’t allow a blog hosted on wordpress to have AdSense ads on it,I’ve even heard of cases where blogs have been banned/locked if they use AdSense.Blogger has no restrictions on advertising(for obvious reasons).
Paid Posts
WordPress doesn’t allow you to do sponsored posts on your blog to earn from it.The point is that when you create a blog on wordpress,the next step is getting your own hosting and shift to it.How on earth are you going to get the money to do that if you can’t do paid posts?If you have a blogger blog, you can earn form AdSense and paid posts and get a domain to increase your paid post payout.Later,you can even get your own hosting and shift to wordpress.org,the best blogging platform possible.
WP.org is definitely better than Blogger but if I talk about free blogging platforms,I feel that Blogger is a better choice than WordPress for those who wish to go further than a free hosted blog on a sub-domain(not that I look down upon such blogs).
Hi there… I stumbled on ur blog while searchin for AIEEE infos… I am much disappointd by my rank 9000-sumthing… How ws urs???
Any way, gloomy things apart, you compared WordPress to Blogger, does LiveJournal stand anywhere with Blogger or WP?
See, I’m a bit of a noob, when it comes to hosting and all, but can you or can you not get a domain to point at your blog on WordPress?
That aside, I realise that you believe very heartily in AdSense and Paid Posts. The thing is that, I don’t do either. So I don’t require the freedom Blogger offers, and I’m happy with WordPress.
But, one BIG advantage Blogger has, is custom CSS, which is a paid upgrade on WordPress. 🙁
@Tech Nut: See, to use a domain ‘properly’ with a WP.com account, you need to upgrade from their add-ons area. By ‘properly’, I mean that the URLs will come out as technut.com/2008/06/… etc etc.
However, there is something that you can do. You *could* by technut.com, and then make a redirect to technut.wordpress.com – this part is at the domain registrar so WP has no control over it. If you enable URL masking, then even after it’s redirected, the address bar will show technut.com. However, all links *within* the page will remain as technut.wordpress.com.
If you want to shift to full-fledged WP though, you could ask Jimi. I can ask him for you. He runs WordPress MU, which allows multiple WordPress blogs on the same installation. You can buy a domain on your own – costs only Rs 300 or so per year (ask me about discount coupons) – and then have a proper WP blog on Jimi’s hosting. He uses Dreamhost, so bandwidth and storage is not an issue. Same goes for Naman – I ask Jimi (or I can ask him for you).
@Harsh-I haven’t tried livejournal
@The Tech Nut-I feel noobs can run WordPress on their own hosting.I was/am a noob but managed to do so manually by reading the instructions.You can do it too.Ankur has answered your question.
@Ankur-I’m not prepared to shift yet.Well, I’m currently in “Deep Thought” about it.
@Harsh: LiveJournal is not good if you use it on their free service – because it also has quite a few restrictions. However, their Moveable Type software (which is free) is quite good – but has its own set of problems. That’s because most hosting provide support for PHP, while Moveable Type requires Perl. Basically, you’ll need to buy VERY costly hosting services. And of course, many advertiser don’t allow LiveJournal blogs from displaying their ads. Stick to WordPress – it’s easier to shift WordPress-hosted too if you need a more powerful blog later.