I moved to TypePad 2 years ago. I’ve been happy with it. They’re constantly adding new features, and it’s simple and powerful. I’ve somehow managed to build a blog that gets an average of 30 hits a day whether I post or not.
But, with my recent career change, the $89.95 renewal fee looks like a mountain. I’m sure in a few months, it won’t be an issue, but here in August, it’s insurmountable. I don’t want to leave TypePad, but unless somebody loves my writing enough to donate to a “Renew the Stand Up Philosopher for another year fund”, this blog is probably going down soon.
It’s not that I’m disappearing. I have several other blogs over the years. I have a lot of duplicate content between them. I started with Blogger at the end of 2004. I’ve tried Wordpress (free) and MSN Spaces. I’m trying to decide which of those services to return to.
Here’s my #1 deterrent to moving back to MSN Spaces. Too much of this junk:
Two out of 3 times that I click anything on MSN Spaces or Windows Live, that happens. It’s much too frustrating. This has been going on for years. 2 years ago, when I moved from Spaces to TypePad, this was happening. It hasn’t changed. OK, the “this link won’t work” graphic is prettier than it used to be, but the reliability is the same or worse.
Plus, there’s no import function. I would have to manually move each of my 800 plus posts over, one by one. Too much work.
Blogger was my first blog. Actually, I think I tried Live Journal, but I moved to Blogger quickly. I’ve seen it grow quite a bit, although it’s still missing some simple things, like split post and categories. Blogger uses tags. Also, again, I would have to manually copy all of my posts over, or at least the 400 or so I’ve written the last 2 years. Blogger does have an import, but it won’t import any of the pictures I’ve posted. So importing my posts would require a lot of work.
I have another blog on Wordpress.com. I haven’t done much with it. Visually, it’s much more attractive and has a lot more plugins. My main complaint with this blog (it is not a self-hosted wordpress blog) is that I can’t monetize it. Of course, I’ve been trying to monetize blogs for 5 1/2 years and gotten nothing for it, so maybe I should just give up on the idea of making money and concentrate on writing and building an audience. Then maybe I’ll decide on a self-hosted blog with options to earn money for my blogging.
What do you think? Which of these blogs do you prefer I move to? I’ve been moving posts and changing my profiles to reacquaint myself with the features each service offers.
That's why I've stayed with blogspot! And I get about 40 hits a day!
Posted by: Fred | August 07, 2010 at 00:01