Tips for a Successful (Movie) Blog V: Blogging Platforms
Everyone has his favorite: Blogger, WordPress, or self-hosted WordPress but which is better? This is a tough question to answer because everyone has different needs. Obviously, this post is not meant to bash one platform or the other but if you are considering changing blogging platform for whatever reason, you may find this article worth your time. For others readers, this will raise your awareness of the different features each platform provides which may help you make a better informed decision in the future. Some questions to consider first before making a decision:
- Are you serious about movie blogging or is it just a casual pastime?
- Is ease of use your priority or do you want full control of all aspects of your movie blog?
- Do you want your movie blog to look “professional” or casual?
Here is a look at some of the main factors that should be considered when choosing a blogging platform.
Appearance
Blogger | Wordpress | Self-Hosted Wordpress |
|
Templates | 16 basic templates and support for custom ones | 85 templates but impossible to install custom ones | Thousands, free and premium |
Magazine-style | Yes | No | Yes |
Customization | Yes but limited due to Blogger's architecture | Yes but only css and you need to pay | Full |
Flash/Javascript | Possible but difficult | Possible but difficult | Yes |
Many people complain about Blogger’s lack of templates but most are completely unaware that a large amount of custom blogs can be found simply by looking “Blogger templates” in Google. Now you know why I say there is absolutely no reason to be using one of the stock template! (Better get working now, you have no excuse) .On the other hand, WordPress suffers from poor customization despite having 85 templates included. The fact is you cannot alter them unless you are willing to pay a fee (and then you can only modify the stylesheet!). Nevertheless, for people unwilling to get their hands dirty, WordPress offers much nicer looking basic templates. Finally, magazine-style templates are out of the reach for WordPress.com users. Those templates have been all the rage as of late as they allow blogs to behave much like regular websites. Ultimately though, once your movie blog reaches a certain level of popularity, Blogger or WordPress.com simply do not cut it anymore.
Tools
Blogger | Wordpress | Self-Hosted Wordpress |
|
Categories/Tags | No/Yes | Yes/Yes | Yes |
Static Pages | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Widgets | 21 Basic | 33 Basic | Hundreds |
Plugins | No | No | Yes, thousands |
Slight advantage to WordPress.com over Blogger in terms of tools. However, the fact that no plugin can be added to both is a massive downer. Blogger has a few more or less useful widgets developed by third parties but most are nothing but nice gadgets that don’t really add anything. For those of you who don’t know, self-hosted WordPress installation have access to over 9000 plugins available free of charge. Numerous features on this site come from plugins developed by the WordPress open source community. This includes tools like spam protection, star ratings, comments counters, SEO tools, picture slideshows, related posts generator and anything that can be done with code.
Community
Blogger | Wordpress | Self-Hosted Wordpress |
|
Comments | Not threaded, user unfriendly | Threaded, user friendly | Threaded, user friendly |
Trackbacks | No | Yes | Yes |
Spam Protection | Visual Verification | Akismet | Akismet |
Multi-Users Blogging | Yes | Yes | Yes |
One of the main current deficiencies in Blogger relates to its comment system. Most of the time, leaving a comment on a Blogspot weblog will open up a new window. The comments are not threaded which prevents individual conversations within the context of the overall discussion. The spam protection is not user-friendly with an annoying Capcha word verification. Additionally, not everyone is always able to leave a comment: Some blogs require you to have a Google account, others don’t. Finally, the worse is the lag that often happens after you submit a comment. It may last a few seconds or it can take 2 or 3 full minutes to get a confirmation that your comment was received (And no, it doesn’t display it right away!). Terrible, terrible system! WordPress has a very distinct advantage here with an easy to use comment form and behind the scene spam verification. Finally, Blogger doesn’t display trackbacks so you may not have any idea that someone is discussing your posts (or stealing them!)
SEO
Blogger | Wordpress | Self-Hosted Wordpress |
|
Meta Tags | Blog | None | Blog and posts |
SE Indexing | Immediate | Days | Weeks |
SE Potential | Moderate | Moderate | Maximum |
Being affiliated with Google does have its advantage and Blogger weblogs are indexed by Google nearly immediately after creation. WordPress blog take a little more time to show up in search engines while the timeframe for self-hosted WordPress installation can vary from a couple weeks to months. As discussed in Tips for a Successful (Movie) Blog IV: SEO, Blogger does not include meta tags by default but it can be made to do so. On the other hand, WordPress users will find themselves unable to alter the back-end of their blog so no meta tags.
Other Considerations
Blogger | Wordpress | Self-Hosted Wordpress |
|
Ease of Use | Easiest | Easy | Variable |
Cost | Free | Free | Domain + Hosting |
Storage | 1 GB | 3 GB | Variable |
Monetize? | Yes | No | Yes |
Blogger is arguably the easiest platform to set up and run. The learning curve with WordPress.com is a bit longer than Blogger but anyone should be able to get easy tasks accomplished within the first hour of using both platforms. One of the largest drawbacks of WordPress.com blogs is that you cannot monetize it (if you are interested in doing so). Trying to put ads on your WordPress.com blog will get you banned so don’t do it!
Conclusion
Blogger and WordPress.com are two of the most popular blogging platforms on the market. It is nice to see that Blogger has striven to close the gap it had with WordPress only a couple years ago. Both are now fairly even matched overall and should satisfy the vast majority of casual bloggers. However, there is a reason why brand name websites and blogs are not on Blogger or WordPress.com. If you are interested in taking your movie blog to the next level, a self-hosted WordPress installation is exponentially superior in all aspects as it allows full control of every facet of your blog. The truth is once you have tasted the possibilities of a self-hosted WordPress blog, there is no going back.
Do you agree with my assessment of Blogger and WordPress? Did I omit some other potential aspects that might tip the balance one way or another? Share your experience with both platforms in the comments!
![Watch: Creepy Trailer for Slasher Pic ‘Maniac’ [NSFW]](http://www.anomalousmaterial.com/movies/wp-content/themes/yamidoo_pro/scripts/timthumb.php?src=http://www.anomalousmaterial.com/movies/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/elijah-wood-maniac-tb.jpg&w=50&h=50&zc=1)
53 Comments
Another great post, when do we start calling you KING OF THE BLOGS?!?!?!
I have another, personal, blog on Blogger and I don’t think it comes near the wordpress platform if I’m being honest. Even after a year posting on WP I’m still uncovering new features. As mentioned though the customization (or lack of) on WP templates is shocking!!!
I tried paying for the CSS updates and working on a new site about a month back but it was wwaaaaayyyyy too confusing for me so just canceled it and marched on.
I guess it depends on what you’re after really because there’s no real clear winner.
Lol thanks! Absolutely, both platforms have their strength and weaknesses and it all depends on each person’s needs
You’re damn right blogger is user unfriendly when it comes to comments – half the time OpenID doesn’t work, or doesn’t work properly and there’s all this verification milarky. I like being able to read an article and say my piece, dammit!
Yes, it’s very frustrating to type a comment and then have to go through this entire ordeal simply to post one comment. The worst is when it takes forever to send the comment and you want to close the window but you can’t lol
I’ve actually had the screen reload without a message, leading me to wonder if – after all the bother – it was submitted at all!
lol we discuss it and then to see it repeatedly happen later in the day when you try to comment on other movie blogs is so annoying!
I love how easy Blogger makes everything actually.
I have a regular site (www.movieskickass.com) that requires too much work to update and G-d knows I don’t always have the time to fight Dreamweaver.
So Blogger makes life much more easier for people who want to write as much as possible and have their work up without too much hassle.
Jose, you should consider installing self-hosted WordPress (wordpress.org) and see for yourself the power afforded to the people in the know
As a self hosted wordpress user (at least for moviemobsters) I admit I’m far partial to this and I’ve tried everything. Blogger has it’s charm, but I find free wordpress easiest to work with, and the templates are far more clean and professional looking, but wordpress self hosted beats all of that ten fold. I may not have the know-how to trick out my site, but I can always ask someone to help or learn myself. It’s mine, it belongs to me, AND I make enough money to sustain the costs of running it.
I have a few blogger personal blogs, but for anything that I’d use in a semi-professional way, I definitely prefer wordpress and overall wordpress hosting, though there is a lot of commitment involved to get there.
Exactly, no chance of Blogger or WordPress.com holding your content hostage! You can trick it out however you want to and the wordpress.org community is amazing. If anyone has any question about wordpress.org, plugins, templates, shoot them!
Actually there are a few things you’ve done on here that I’ve been admiring and trying to figure out if they are pluggins or not. Perhaps I’ll drop you an email or facebook you with my questions!
I would be happy to answer
I’ve ticked everybox and messed with every setting and just am not finding enough customization with regular WordPress and am thinking of self-hosting WordPress.org in the next few months. But from just my 14 months using standard WordPress I still prefer it to Blogger.
I have a few friends who are graphic designers and design websites. Castor, Heather, should I get them in on my going to “self-hosting”? Or is it something I can figure out on my own?…please say no to the last question:P
So glad you wrote something to this effect Castor! You must have been reading my mind:)
The thing with self-hosted WordPress is that it can be as simple or complex as you want it to be. You can definitely set it up and run it without any trouble by yourself. Now, if you want to design an unique and truly original website, you will probably need some professional help
Glad you enjoyed the post!
Since there’s no chance of me ever going professional, and the last thing I want is a headache (though at times Blogger does aptly supply them), I just go with blogspot. As for monetizing. In the nearly 7 months my blog has been active I’ve made $8. Hardly enough to justify it for that right (though my blog’s popularity isn’t exactly golden either).
The one thing I would say is once you pick one, it’s hard to chance. Most of these don’t allow auto forwarding except to a self made domain. And Blogger (I believe) only allows it with their back-in still applied.
As for blogger comments the reason most of them are new window/page is that the built-in comments only works on none-custom pages. For whatever reason if you want comments on a custom blogger blog you’ve gotta have the new page/window (I think this may have to do with some backend variables – not really sure though).
Actually, it’s very easy to import your blog from Blogger to WordPress (impossible the other way though). There is also a few tricks to redirect your blogger visitors to your site. Your traffic might take a small hit and it might take a little while before you get back to where you were. As for the new window for comments, I have seen blogger weblogs not popping a new window to leave a comment so it’s definitely possible.
Hmmm. If my blog ever grows enough, or I start taking it seriously enough, I may one day look to get my own domain and hosting. But to be honest with just me, and one post a day, the odds of me really diving in to put $$$ into it is very slim.
As for the blogger webblogs not popping into windows or a comment page (like I use) I’ve only ever seen it with the blogger basic templates (where it can be embedded).
I saw one last night Check it out: http://getafilm.blogspot.com/2010/04/mspiff-2010-new-and-improved.html
It appears that there’s a handful of quick fixes, and that lots of customs auto implement it.
I went ahead and tried the quick fix. Not sure if my layout lends itself to that well (seems a bit compact). Next time you make your way to my blog for a comment let me know what you think!
Nice post! Down the road if I get good enough steady traffic on the site, I would switch over from wordpress.com to self-hosting. Right now I still see myself as a young grasshopper in the blogging world. I feel it would be unwise at the moment to lay down serious money each month when I’m only getting a handful of unique users coming in everyday.
My way of remedying this battle? I have two blogs – one on each site. Once I get better acquainted on WordPress, I’ll let you know which one is superior. (Though, I tend to agree with what Jose said about the ease of Blogger…)
another great tipping blog Castor! Nice one.
good post as usual Castor, am sick of saying that
this is useful stuff, particularly for anyone thinking of starting a blog
we went for wordpress as it was suggested by a friend, and its pretty good actually for all the basic stuff. there are loads of things id like to change about our site that i cant though. but i think for noobs like us the key to begin with is to deliver decent content.
i sometimes toy with going selfhosted but would probably only do so if we got lucky and managed to get a steady fanbase
how much more difficult is selfhosted wordpress to wordpress.com?
do you need to know html?
is there a decent ‘Support’ forum as with wordpress.com?
on self-hosted wordpress are you allowed to advertise then?
theres too many questions… too many questions (what movie is that line from again?)
i reckon if we did go selfhosted Castor you would get a barrage of emails from me regularly, so maybe its best we stay as we are…
The installation can be a bit tricky but it is explained very well on WordPress.org and once you get that down. It’s basically your wordpress.com dashboard with more options. You do not need to know HTML
As for customer support, the knowledgebase is immense. And yes, you can have ads in self-hosted wordrpess 
I was surprised at how easy and fast the transition from wordpress.com to org was. I was prepared for a lot mpre trouble than I got!
Yes, King of the Blog is right. Castor, you rule, man! I’ve been wanting to switch to a different WordPress template but I don’t want to pay any annual free, I mean, this is just a hobby of mine right now. All I need is the time to actually do it because most likely my blog would have to be ‘down’ for at least a few days while I tinker with it. Mainly I’d love to be able to post more images on the sidebar and WordPress only allows one image widget, lame I know! Castor, would you be willing to help me out if I tell you I’d like to use a certain template? You seem to be very technically-savvy. I’ll just email you directly now that I have it from the Desert Island emails from Andy.
Absolutely, shoot any question my way and I’ll try to help
that ‘too many questions’ bit is from the Riddler at the end of Batman Forever!!
haha, Ross McD will love that. its his favourite Batman movie
his comment was good…
mine was better…
McD is crazy! That is by far not the best Batman flick ever, though I didn’t mind Kilmer as Batman as much as many people did.
cool Castor.. so if youre familiar with wordpress.com its not too much of a stretch on wordpress.org? no html… sounds good. and you get your choice of thousands of templates then? how much is it? might have to dabble
Well you will need to shop around for hosting and domain but it only amounts to a few bucks a month (like $7-10 is very common now). As for the templates, there is thousands free, and there is hundreds that are premium (you pay $40-$200+ to get it)
ugh. paying money to talk shite? i can do that for free. might look into it further down the line though. these posts are great though, always enjoyable and easily readable
Sounds about right…what’s Storage mean, in terms of Blogger?
Blogger is annoying, sometimes, but making a WordPress account gives me a headache.
Storage means how much picture you can upload to Blogger before they say no more! Don’t worry, 1 gb is still quite a lot of pictures!
I prefer WordPress over Blogger but I’ve finally hit the point where the free WordPress blog just doesn’t cut it anymore. I’ve been thinking about doing the hosted WordPress but never get around to it. God knows it’s not really that expensive but my main reason for doing it would be to monetize the site and my typical lack of confidence in that aspect is probably what’s holding me back.
Well you should not expect going in to make money from ads. If you do, it’s great. If not, keep plugging! If you ever make the leap (or want to), you can ask questions here
Yeah Will. Mine essentially pays for itself with the ads, but beyond that hasn’t been lucrative, I just like the creative freedom myself, and that is definitely the biggest bonus.
I’d love to see an article about ads and estimated income from them versus vistirs traffic but also what kind of numbers you need to have.
A lot of the biggest bloggers (non film) in sweden use Tailsweep to get money from their blogs.
Good article. I’ve never had any experience with WP, CAM started immediately on Blogger and I can say it is a good experience so far. Blogger has its kinks, but nothing to give you serious troubles.
It’s fairly easy to customize. I had no knowledge (and I still don’t) of HTML coding, CSS or any of that stuff, but still manage to transform a basic Blogger template into a nice skin for the blog. I played around a bit with background images (repeat/norepeat/strecth/etc), static and dynamic modes, sidebars, custom cursor (which don’t work anymore with FF 3.6, goddamnit!), and all of that.
Truth to be told, even if I had a self-hosted website, I wouldn’t know what to do with it, and would make it the same as the one I have now. Bottom line is, free Blogger offers just enough customization for my needs, without the need to dwell deep into coding.
The only real downside I can think of are the comments. In this area, WP just pwns Blogger. But for the oocasional comment or two CAM gets every week, it’s not something I need to worry about.
On a sidenote, from the blogs I’ve seen, the ones hosted on Blogger looked nicer then the ones on WP, who are all generic to me in terms of design.
Yes, I was meaning to tell you your blog is looking great lately and much better than the usual blogger weblog so it’s definitely possible to give it a custom look.
First off, in regards to storage, as Castor said, the 1GB limit on Bloggeris more than enough. I’ve got 2 sites that have posts with pictures (not crazy big ones or 40 pics a day, just a normal amount) every for > 2 years each and I think I’m at 16% capacity. By the time I get anywhere near even 50%, I’m sure the limit will have been raised.
“Finally, Blogger doesn’t display trackbacks so you may not have any idea that someone is discussing your posts (or stealing them!)”
Pretty sure this is at least partially false. At the bottom of each individual post page, there is a “Links to this post” section. I’ve gone and checked on a few posts that I know are linked, and it doesn’t look like it’s all that reliable, but it is there and there are links there (at least sometimes).
I’ve actually always liked the Blogger comments sections much more than others. True, threading would be nice, but there are so many WP or self-hosted sites that are missing one giganticly huge component that more or less assures that I won’t be back to comment on a post I commented on previously: a simple checkbox that says “notify me of followup comments via e-mail.
Thankfully, you’ve got one, Castor.
I can’t tell you how important said checkbox is to me in terms of return visits. If it’s not there, am I really expected to return to possibly hundreds of posts in a week merely to see if the author (or others) has responded? Not happening. And sorry, but I’m not subscribing to comment RSS feeds.
Short of all that, I’m in a boat like Univarn. I’m just so far in that, even though I could switch, it just doesn’t seem worth the work. Though a template change is in store one of these days, at least for BC.
By the way, that header image suuuuure could be interpreted as “Blogger > WordPress.” At least, that’s the way I’ll look at it.
Ahaha yep, I had to edit the picture a bit and it just happen I cropped it that way
I’ve never noticed those little trackback links in Blogger so thanks for pointing that out! Good point on the email follow-up! It’s a really useful tool especially once you start getting some consistent discussion. The Comments RSS is completely useless I agree, I am not making space on my Reader’s screen simply for comments sorry!
THE LIST actually started on Blogger and I just didn’t like it. I have found WordPress to be so user friendly to the blogging inept that I will never switch. Also, love how much easier WordPress makes it to comment and follow responses. I noticed on sites like The Dark of the Matinee or Blog Cabins or even LAMB, I have to go back and check to see if anyone left follow-ups to my comments. WordPress just tells me… AND I DON’T HAVE A G-MAIL ACCOUNT AND DON’T WANT ONE… AARGH!!!
Kai – Just wanted to clarify one thing: you don’t need a Gmail account to receive follow-up comments on Blogger, just a Google account, which, if you already had your blog on Blogger previously, you should already have. I don’t have a Gmail account – I use Yahoo and get follow-ups emailed to me. So yea, it means someone would need to sign up for a Google account to get follow-ups, but that account will work for all Blogger blogs.
You’re right… I do have one I forgot about. When you leave a comment with that, it gives you the option to get e-mails of follow-up comments? I always comment under name and URL and it doesn’t give you the option. I’ve commented on your site and have to remember when and where to find out.
“When you leave a comment with that, it gives you the option to get e-mails of follow-up comments?”
Yep. After reading some of the comments here, I went to my site to see how it would be as a visitor. I wrongly assumed that that checkbox was there for everybody. Sadly, it’s not, but I would assume that many, many non-Blogspot peeps still have a Google account for something or other, so that’s nice at least.
So it is available with the google account. And then I choose the e-mail I want them sent to?
It’ll send to the email account associated with your Google account, whatever that is. Try it, you’ll see!
I wish someone would come up with a great commentary tracking system that is actually used on a majority of Blogs. I lvoed how easily wordpress.com tracked comments and I have used both intense debate and disqus after switshing to wordpress.org but they haven’t been as smooth and is hardly used by anyone else.
I’ve been using Drupal for my website, CinemaFunk (www.cinemafunk.com). It’s a steep learning curve, and I mean really steep. But once you get used to it and find the right modules, you can do anything with it. But overall, much more difficult for some who merely wants to write and publish.
Thanks for your input. I was wondering what platform you were using as your site had a somewhat different feel than most other blogs. I have heard about Drupal but have never tried it. You are right that most people seem to care only about ease of use as shown by the popularity of Blogger for example.
Drupal looks quite fresh, would love to hear some of your thoughts about how it is to work with.
I have been through all these 3 stages in my short blog history.
I started out with blogspot but had such a hard time getting into it, I decided to switch to WordPress which was amazingly much better. Unfortunately I felt really trapped in the limitations design- and plugin wise so I decided to switch to a self hosted wordpress.org blog, and I have had no regrets this far.
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