Recently, I've been thinking about migrating my blog to WordPress or some other content management system. I hear WordPress is pretty easy to use, but I haven't taken the time to figure it out yet.
Ideally, I'd like to get rid of the dot blogspot dot com, and get some php practice for another long-term idea I have (more on that later).
But tell me, is it worth it?
I'd love to hear thoughts from folks who have done this recently. How long did it take you to get your new blog up and running?
What do you think?
7 comments:
I used Wordpress for a class blog, and though I liked all the options available, I decided I didn't want to put the time into learning it all. For you, it might be worth it. But for me, I don't need to understand the tech side so much as the social/cultural side, so it wasn't.
I chose to pay for Typepad and have 24-hr. tech support instead, and bought my domain name from godaddy. Have been very happy with it.
Hope this helps.
@karen_russell It does help. My boyfriend had a similar experience--everyone told him it would be easy to set up a website with Wordpress, but he found all the options confusing and he didn't know enough about the tech to make it work the way he wanted (and I didn't know enough to help).
It's a balancing act: time, money, interest, reuse potential, etc.
Hi Sandy,
I use wordpress.org's version for all Blog projects that I set up for a couple main reasons.
1 - It's free and
2 - is easy to customize and add page elements not available in other solutions.
If you can learn the WP template fundamentals and have a general understanding of PHP, CSS and HTML, then designing themes and adding elements is pretty easy.
You will need to find your own hosting, BUT you also have your own dedicated domain to run any other web apps on or to extend your blog.
If your looking for a more hands-off approach, Wordpress.com is a hosted wordpress solution that you can use with your own domain for a fee, but is not as flexible in terms of customizations and add-ons.
I guess what it comes down to is, if you know your way around the source code and need all the extras and flexibility, the Wordpress.org version is something I can recommend. If not, it may not be what your looking for.
Hope that helps
Ed Stafford | pixel8r
I started out on a Wordpress.com blog, and then moved up to a hosted version of Wordpress and am totally glad that I did.
While it is a little bit difficult to learn about the coding side, I think that it really pays off. You'll be glad you did.
I've now started a couple of blog and web projects using wordpress, and find that the more I learn about it, the more valuable I am to friends and colleagues.
There are also a TON of free resources online for Wordpress. For any problem you can imagine, someone has posted step-by-step instructions on how to solve it.
Hey there...just dropping in as I am wont to do from time to time.
I set up a Word Press working blog to collaborate with one of my clients as I was building a website for them. For what it's worth, I really didn't like the user interface.
Also, he wanted to do his own blogging on the site, but shared my disappointment with the Word Press UI. I did some digging and came up with these:
Movable Type
http://www.movabletype.com/download/
Textpattern
http://textpattern.com/download
Nucleus CMS
http://www.nucleuscms.org/download.php
Serendipity
http://www.s9y.org/12.html
Even if you do decide to go with Word Press, this will help you make a more informed decision!
Also, this Word Press tutorial makes it look pretty easy to install.
Cheers!
I started out with blogger and blogspot and have stuck with it for my blog. Even google uses blogspot. You can now pay to get the blogspot removed and still use it. Kinda like spot removal. :-) I like it because it just works.
@stevegarfield I didn't know you could do that! That might be enough for me for now. I had been told by many people that Wordpress allows more flexibility, and it doesn't wed you to the .blogspot.com domain. So it's really good to know I'm not stuck on their domain--I'll have to look into that tonight!
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