The Results: Blogging Platforms
Thanks to everyone who participated in our informal survey of blogging platforms. Here are the results, with Wordpress clearly the most used platform (in either its Wordpress-hosted or Wordpress-powered forms - you can read more about Wordpress options here).
Below are a few links which compare several blogging platforms. As with anything related to technology, it’s easy for something to become outdated quickly, so some of the features or functions these sites have listed may have changed since the time it was published.
Blogging Platforms - PC World (2007)
Blog Software Comparison Chart - Online Journalism Review (2006)
If you use Wordpress, which option do you use and why? If you don’t use Wordpress, what types of features (if any) would convince you to change platforms?
Visit 
WordPress 2.3 added a lot of sweet features, including true tagging. I see the Swerve blog is still on the 2.0.x branch–you might consider upgrading for more features! If you don’t upgrade to 2.3, i would encourage you to upgrade to 2.0.11, as there are some security vulnerabilities which you’re left open to on 2.0.5.
The tagging feature is very cool.
I wanted to work with something open source.
I appreciated that WordPress put out consistent updates.
I also wanted to be a self-hosted blog, for more control.
I tried Wordpress for awhile…but..I stink at the whole html/css stuff & wasted a ton of time trying to figure out how to do stuff. So, I jumped ship to Typepad. I like the new Wordpress & have toyed with the idea of going back - but not yet. I have a wordpress “test” account that I mess wit…we’ll see……
Laters,
T
I love Wordpress - mainly because of its simple ways of customization. I have learned so much about CSS I didn’t know trying to figure it out! I think its interface loads quickly and the plugins are amazing.
My favorite WordPress plugins are Amazon Showcase and Snap Shot. Wordpress has tons of theme options so you can really customize the look and feel of your blog. I used to use Blogger, but I am a Wordpress convert.
I love the ease of customization both on hosted wordpress.com and wordpress powered sites. I chose wordpress.com for my personal blog because the available themes were much nicer than Blogger or other platforms and the sidebar widgets make customizing my sidebar very simple. I’m not sure if it’s still this way, but to customize your sidebar (even just adding a link) in Blogger you had to edit the code which I found obnoxious.
For sites/blogs that I build for my church I use WordPress because I can do just about anything I want by finding a plug-in. I’m a hack when it comes to coding but I can make sites do some cool things with a WordPress install and plug-ins. One of my favorites is the NextGEN gallery. It creates really nice ajax powered photo galleries.
[...] Blogging Platforms [...]
I just switched to Wordpress from Blogger, and have been primarily happy. Dave, the new version of Blogger does widgets now - so you don’t have to mess with the template code.
I like the option of having multiple pages. One thing I’m not happy about is that Javascript is not allowed, and they are not really friendly toward video and html in your post unless it is Google or YouTube.
All in all I’m happy, and I like the themes better, and I like the fact they offer three column templates
I like WordPress because it’s flexible and full of features. I’ve toyed with a WordPress.com account, but on my self-hosted WordPress installs I run anywhere from five to thirty plugins installed that let me do almost anything I might want. I haven’t yet, but I could write my own plugins (I’m learning PHP with WordPress, it’s not a huge learning curve coming from Perl a few years ago but I learn new stuff all the time).
Almost anything I’ve ever wanted to do is already a plugin though, and I find great new ones all the time! Things like FeedBurner integration, Google Analytics tracking code, comment spam control (Akismet), Gravatars (now owned by Automattic), Google XML Sitemaps, Series of posts (In Series plugin), Facebook integration, podcasting (PodPress plugin, using for sermons online), polls, and administration from my Treo 650 (WPPhone plugin). And that’s just a few of the more interesting things I’m using plugins for; there are more!