Wondering about which blog service fits ITAddict´s needs best
Due to recurrent uploading problems with Blogger at the moment, I´ve been wondering whether I had made a good decision or not opening “ITAddict: IT made simple” on Google´s Blogger / Blogspot. Don´t worry, this blog´s very existence in by no way in danger: I enjoy blogging a lot.
To tell you the truth, when it comes to chosing a service to power my blog, I´m not sure I actually made a choice: I just happened to open it on Blogger without thinking too much (I had had a former, pretty interesting, blogging experience one year ago – which lasted 3 weeks and as many posts, using Overblog – which wasn´t bad at all).
Since I didn´t want to pay anything to be able to blog (Six Apart´s Typepad and Movable Type), my pain should more or less have resulted in chosing between Overblog, Wordpress, and Blogger.
Blogger is very easy to use, powered by Google (ungrounded rumors: there are good chances that search rankings will be higher!), and easy to remember since so many people use it. But it lacks functionalities such as editing comments (rather useful when you realize you made a spelling mistake), and has been unstable recently. Another shortcoming: the layout is the one you should expect if you user Mozilla Firefox to browse the Net; otherwise, and especially on MS Internet Explorer, the design is crappy and definitely not what you should expect.
Anyways:
1) too late…
2) I´m not convinced another blog service provider would´ve done much better (e.g. WordPress´s rather slow at loading; Overblog is too French; TypePad is not free; etc.).
Adendum 1: I just happenend to discover that Olivier Ezratty, a former Microsoft France executive and now a coach for start-uppers, explained on his blog (in French) why he chose WordPress. To French-speaking readers (I apologize to the majority): Olivier Ezratty´s blog is one of my favourite daily visits. I don´t know the man, but his analyses are unique. We share a common drawback, which is having a hard time writing short posts 
. But though some of mines are concise, you won´t find any single one of them on his.
Forgetting about length, you have access on www.oezratty.net to the most accurate analyses on the software industry (innovation, R&D) in general and Microsoft on particular (as an insider, his writing usually involves a sarcastic tone when it comes to regulation or lobbying; e.g. “MS fined by Bruxelles for lower-tier software engineering methods”). You may also find in a recent post an enlightening interview of Bernard Liautaud, the co-founder & the Chairman of Business Intelligence software player Business Objects. Interestingly enough, the interview was published in the magazine “Centraliens“, an in-house alumni review of Ecole Centrale Paris, a leading French engineering school where I´ll be starting in September majoring in computer science, telcos & project management thanks to an agreement between Centrale & my home-university, HEC Paris.
Adendum 2: …the same Olivier Ezratty provides his readers with an a link: Emily Robbins describes on her blog her experience with both WordPress & Typepad.
Adendum 3: 5 blog services reviewed by CNet. Blogger ranks last between Typepad, MSN Spaces, Yahoo! 360 & AOL Journals but taking a look at user comments, Blogger´s far ahead. Although I´m aware of the sample bias we´re facing here.
Related posts:
don’ t hesitate just benefit from over-blog services for free.
in september there may be many various new features because of the recent agreements with tf1 and with
dailymotion…
so, just leave blogspot ( i should say f…. blogspot)( i have blogged on blogspot for many weeks…), please ! ;-0)
but you are right stats are much higher.
And stats matter. But thanks for your input François-Albert.
pleasure in blogging too… no ?
I almost had no one with blogspot
You have forgotten that Blogspot allow mail publishing. It’s a very interesting feature!
François-Albert> I do have fun blogging through Blogger. I discovered lots of problems are due to browsers: Firefox is good to browse the blog, MSIE is not good at browsing; Firefox isn’t good at entering the administrator area and post new entries; Opera and Crazy Browser are pretty good at posting; etc. It’s rather strange.
Hubert> You’re right, it’s extremely useful though I don’t use it yet (I have no personal digital assistant). But the idea was implemented initially by Typepad.
I’ll certainly meet you at Centrale! In Q1, I’m running a course on innovation strategies in the Information Technology option. I’ll also team up with Dimitri Dagot, the head of the “option”, to run the “From Idea to Product” students projects track.
So you will for sure be my professor indeed since I´ll be precisely be studying within the IT option.
I´m really looking forward to you lectures! Many thanks for your post.
Hey Jeremy,
i tested a lot of platforms (bloggger, wordpress, live spaces, typepad, blogspirit) and my choice for blogspirit was for different reasons: for free, lot of possibilities, simplicity… The problem is that blogspirit is now free any more for newcomers…
If you have the possibility to host it yourself, wordpress or dotclear would be a very good solution. An advantage is that you will have your own domain adress and for future cganges, it is better (that’s my problem : if I change, I loose all my referencement)
Typepad is one of the best but expensive.
Blogger is good for starting (I started so) with blogging but possibilities are not enough for “heavy bloggers”
Thanks for your advice Cedric. By the way, would you know whether it´s easy or not to move from Blogger to another blog services provider without resuming search rankings?
To all:
I found my former blog´s address again (thank you Elisa): http://jeremyfain.canalblog.com/
To the happy few, since it´s in French.
Actually I started in blogger for a personal blog about my trip in Germany (you know, with personal photos, some funny stuff…) and when I decided to start a Blog more “professionnal” I opened it in blogspirit so I made no transfer.
I don’t think that you can install a redirection 301 (redirect automatically google) in blogger so if you change, you will loose ranking. But I’m not expert in this domain. That’s why it is very important to do your change as soon as possible.
Thanks Cedric. So far, I´ve been pretty happy with blogger although I´m opened to all options and thinking about it. Your viewpoint was very helpful in this respect.
Everyone forget Dotclear !
Free efficient and Dotclear 2.0 will be very good in a few month after the debugging.
I’ll ask Olivier to come to one of your class
seems fun.
Everyone forget Dotclear !
Free efficient and Dotclear 2.0 will be very good in a few month after the debugging.
I’ll ask Olivier to come to one of your class
seems fun.
I didn´t know about Dotclear, thanks Leafar. I guess Olivier Ezratty will be most happy to invite in his class. I´m looking forward to meeting you there.–>
Just wanted to say I’m enjoying it!
Just wanted to say I’m enjoying it!