I could understand why, because when I switched to the much-hyped Blogger Beta, lots of features no longer worked. Nine months after it was announced that the "new" Blogger was introduced, and that it was now "fully-featured", most of the features that didn't work in the Beta version still don't work, and a few more have got broken along the way.
As a result of that, I started an experimental WordPress blog, called Khanya, back in February, and now for the first time, it has passed this blog in the number of people reading it in a day.
Yesterday Khanya had 64 readers, and Notes from Underground had 47. Khanya was ranked 145 on Amatomu, while Notes from Underground was 167. That may just be a temporary thing, of course -- Notes from Underground still has far more links to it from other blogs (according to Technorati), and so perhaps it wouldn't be a good idea to move this blog to WordPress because it would break those links.
They also seem to have different sets of readers, according to StatCounter:
Khanya readers:
| Num | Perc. | Country Name | ||
 | 197 | 43.20% | United States |  |
| 144 | 31.58% | South Africa |  |
| 33 | 7.24% | United Kingdom |  |
| 18 | 3.95% | Australia |  |
| 14 | 3.07% | Netherlands |  |
| 12 | 2.63% | Canada |  |
| 7 | 1.54% | Philippines |  |
| 6 | 1.32% | New Zealand |  |
| 5 | 1.10% | Mauritius |  |
| 3 | 0.66% | Greece |  |
| 2 | 0.44% | Cyprus |  |
| 2 | 0.44% | Unknown | - |
| 2 | 0.44% | Malaysia |  |
| 2 | 0.44% | France |  |
| 1 | 0.22% | Finland |  |
| 1 | 0.22% | Iceland |  |
| 1 | 0.22% | Namibia |  |
| 1 | 0.22% | Spain |  |
| 1 | 0.22% | Albania |  |
| 1 | 0.22% | Romania |  |
| 1 | 0.22% | Suriname |  |
| 1 | 0.22% | Chile |  |
| 1 | 0.22% | Turkey |  |
Notes from Underground readers:
| Num | Perc. | Country Name | ||
| 157 | 33.76% | South Africa | |
| 150 | 32.26% | United States | |
| 39 | 8.39% | Canada | |
| 26 | 5.59% | United Kingdom | |
| 12 | 2.58% | Thailand |  |
| 11 | 2.37% | Germany |  |
| 9 | 1.94% | Australia | |
| 7 | 1.51% | France | |
| 7 | 1.51% | India |  |
| 5 | 1.08% | Netherlands | |
| 4 | 0.86% | Philippines | |
| 4 | 0.86% | Mauritius | |
| 3 | 0.65% | Barbados |  |
| 3 | 0.65% | Malaysia | |
| 3 | 0.65% | Unknown | - |
| 3 | 0.65% | Greece | |
| 2 | 0.43% | Switzerland |  |
| 2 | 0.43% | Austria |  |
| 2 | 0.43% | Russian Federation |  |
| 1 | 0.22% | Suriname | |
| 1 | 0.22% | Puerto Rico |  |
| 1 | 0.22% | Togo |  |
| 1 | 0.22% | Poland |  |
| 1 | 0.22% | Slovenia |  |
| 1 | 0.22% | Lebanon |  |
| 1 | 0.22% | Algeria |  |
| 1 | 0.22% | Hungary |  |
| 1 | 0.22% | Mexico |  |
| 1 | 0.22% | Chile | |
| 1 | 0.22% | United Arab Emirates |  |
| 1 | 0.22% | Argentina |  |
| 1 | 0.22% | Malta |  |
| 1 | 0.22% | New Zealand | |
| 1 | 0.22% | Nigeria |  |
| 1 | 0.22% | Ireland |  |
So perhaps the time has come to move this blog to WordPress, as so many others have done.
I'm still not sure though. Most of the features of Blogger that no longer work were never part of WordPress anyway. And the Blogger template is still easier to edit than WordPress.
Blogger features I miss most:
1. Blog this!
2. Search all blogs
3. Click on interests, books, movies in user profile to find those with similar interests
Annoyances:
When you're at the Dashboard, you can click "Dashboard" to get there when you're already there, but when yuou're at the blog, you have to click "Customise" to get a place where you can click to get to the Dashboard. This not only wastes time, it wastes bandwidth, having to load another page unnecessarily.
When you click "Link to this post", the "Edit HTML" no longer works -- you have to save the page and then edit it, loading two more pages in the process -- wasing more time and bandwidth.
So I'm still in two minds about whether to switch. Perhaps when the next thing breaks in Blogger.
6 comments:
I have my Blogger Dashboard page saved on my Bookmarks, so I can click directly to it, and not have to navigate there.
I'll try and write something about Wittgesntein and pain before too long - one of those issues that doesn't have a swift answer!
Interesting comments on the differences between Blogger and Wordpress. I find Wordpress harder to use but I wouldn't think of switching, especially since I probably wouldn't know how to accomplish it.
Interesting comment, rev sam, on Wittgenstein and pain. I'd be interested in reading that when you get it posted. On your blog? Thanks for information.
Rev Sam,
Yes, I suppose one could bookmark it -- but why can't they simply put the "Customise" option on the Dashboard page, and the "Dashboard" option on the main page, where it would be some use?
Seev,
Yes, WordPress is a bit harder to use, though at least it uses proper HTML for posting, instead of all that "Span" nonsense.
One thing I hate about Wordpress is it won't let you preview comments before posting them.
You can use proper HTML in Blogger; in fact Blogger uses it automatically in Internet Explorer. The 'span' nonsense is peculiar to Firefox.
Young fogey,
Another thing is that Blogger handles graphics more easily, as, for example the liberal quiz on your blog: A conservative blog for peace and on my WordPress one. Not to mention the statistic quoted in the main post, which WordPress simply doesn't display.
I still wish they'd fix the bugs in Blogger, though!
Young fogey, there is a plugin you can use in Wordpress to preview comments before you submit them. Here's the link to it: http://www.ilfilosofo.com/blog/comments-preview/
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