Has blogging or using WordPress changed your life? Is the change a positive one?
As I mentioned on Monday, blogging with WordPress has raised my confidence, given me a supportive online community, and enabled me to earn some money freelancing.
These accomplishments, however, pale in comparison to how WordPress has changed Glenda Watson Hyatt’s life. I know this video has been posted in my places this week, but I wanted to make it available here as well, in case any of my readers haven’t seen it yet.
Glenda has cerebral palsy and blogging with WordPress has given her a voice in which she is judged by what she writes rather than by her disability.
Now I doubt that WordPress and blogging has changed out lives in the way that it has for Glenda but I still want to hear your stories. How has WordPress changed your life? Has it been a positive or negative change? Do you love blogging and detest the software? Or do you love everything about it and wish you had more time to devote to it?
photo credit: 416 style
My story pales in comparison with Glenda’s, but here goes:
WordPress is the first and only blogging platform I have used. Blogging was a goal of mine for over a year, but I wasn’t sure that I could keep it up due to health conditions.
I took the plunge three months ago and it has been revelatory. Not only have I learned so, so much about writing, the subject matter of my blog and the innards of WordPress and themes, but I have learned a great deal about myself. I count the last as most important.
Thank you, Kim, for this wonderful post!
Mike Nichols’s last blog post – I’m Dying: What a Panic Attack Feels Like
I love blogging.
As far as the software goes, I don’t have any experience with any other software so I can’t really say.
Vered – MomGrind’s last blog post – Beauty Standards Have Sure Changed
I tried Blogger in the past and wasn’t very impressed. I liked the templates, but that was it. When I switched over to WordPress, I was naturally able to drive much more traffic with less effort. I think Blogger is OK for personal blogs or if you don’t care who/if anyone reads it.
@Mike – Well, maybe your story isn’t so extreme but it’s still serious – just in a different way. I didn’t realize that you had just started blogging a couple of months ago – you’re doing such a great job and really put a lot into each article. I’m so glad that you’re learning about yourself, that’s blogging is helping you and that you are meeting such supportive people.
@Vered – I love blogging too. I’ve tried different software – I actually used Movable Type for a long time and resisted switching to WordPress. That blogging was very casual though – nothing like I’m doing now.
@Carla – I’ve never used Blogger but have started getting people asking me questions about it so I’m going to learn about it a little. What I think I want to figure out is how to convert from Blogger to WordPress.
I think Blogger has it’s value – say someone wants to try blogging but doesn’t have any money for a webhost or doesn’t know if they will really enjoy it.
Though I started with a couple of blogger blogs, I soon switched to WP. The following are the issues I faced with blogger…
– Self-hosting is not that easy
– No categories… I can’t think of a life without categories these days :)
– Comments in popup and not much control over that standard comment template…
Nevertheless, bloggers hosting seem to be damn fast.
Coming back to Glenda Watson, it was a real inspiring story… I thought accessibility is pretty good with WP admin panel except for widget code entry panes… Btw, there was a WP UI survey for 2.7.2. Kim, did you participate in that?
Cheers,
Ajith
(PS: Your Google Adsense script has an extra ‘–>’ added at the end, you may remove it as well as this comment PS)
Ajith Edassery’s last blog post – Open Mic – Talk about you, your family, hobbies, halloween shopping,…
Hi Ajith,
I don’t like the pop-up blogger comments either – they’re annoying. I never noticed that blogger was faster – maybe I should pay attention to that.
I did take the 2.7 survey. And I was just reading a pdf earlier that talked a lot about the plans for the interface. http://wpdotorg.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/wf-dashboard_v002_093008jw.pdf
Thanks for the heads up about the script code. It was actually an old share this bookmarking thing that I used to use and that I had commented out rather than removed – it’s gone now :-)
I started blogging with blogspot, but ever since I shifted to wordpress, my blogging is never the same ever since. Not only I am earning more from blogging, it is more fun with wordpress.
kuanhoong’s last blog post – iStellar – Mobile Planetarium for iPhone and iPod Touch
Hi kuanhoong,
Why do you think blogging is more fun with WordPress?
I tried Blogspot for a week beofre shifting to WordPress. It has certainly made blogging much easier. The extensive amount of plugins, themes it offers is a big help. And its user base is also huge so you can get your doubts solved quickly.
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Hi Madhur,
Wow! Only one week. I agree that one of the best things about WordPress is how many people use it – you can almost always find help or a plugin that will fix the problems you’re having.
You may remove this comment later… there is one more ‘comment end tag’ below the sidebar ad :lol:
WordPress has been my only platform although I began for the first 4 months with the freebie at wordpress.com. I can tell you it’s a pain in the ass to comment on Blogger blogs because many of them don’t even have the open URL option available.
I was a non-techie and I guess I still am yet I now know more. I’ve still not made a single change on my own on my static coaching site yet I’m learning and changing stuff all the time in my wordpress dashboard.
Yes it’s changed my life because I am no longer as hesitant to learn about technology.
Tom Volkar / Delightful Work’s last blog post – Why Don’t We Use What We Already Know?
@Ajith – That’s ok – the ads are messing up the validation and I need to go through and fix that – I just haven’t had a chance recently. Thanks.
@Tom – One of the great things about WordPress is that you don’t need to know much about technology to use it.
I actually had not seen the video. Thanks a lot for sharing, and yes it is very inspiring. WordPress is a very user friendly piece of software, and there is no doubt it is creating communities. By the way, I have just looked at your other posts as well, very interesting. Will certainly be back for more!
Hi Sharon,
Thanks for stopping by and commenting! It really is an inspirational video.
I’m glad you found my other posts useful too :-)
Hi Kim,
Yes, before WP I used the Blogger platform and I found it to very frustrating. Not so much for me, but for other people.
I like the flexibility of WordPress.
Hi Ellen,
It seems like a lot of Blogger users eventually switch over to WordPress. They get used to blogging and want to try new things only to discover that Blogger doesn’t have that capability.
Hi Kim and everyone else,
I’ve managed my blog on a Blogger custom domain for about 18 months. I have a Page Rank of 4, which is aided by Google’s ownership of Blogger. This is good.
But there are many things about Blogger that are aggravating me to no end, namely the need to have specific plugins/widgets without finagling my code every time; the ability to do trackbacks which is near impossible without a Greasemonkey script when and if it works; the ability to have categories/tags that are seen across the platform and tie into Technorati and not labels that are blog-centric only; and the desire to have an open source blogging platform.
I’m leaning toward converting to either WordPress.org (and get a cheap blog hosting provider) or something like Joomla or Drupal, though I don’t know how feature-rich they are like WordPress.
At this point, one of the reasons I haven’t moved is the rising Page Rank which will likely drop some due to the Blogger-less platform; but I hope with the ability to have longer URLs (your title above would be truncated with Blogger), my SEO would increase.
Ari Herzog’s last blog post – How YouTube Helps Us Vote
Hi Ari,
Thanks for all the info about the pros and cons of using blogger.
Since google just updated page rank would now be a good time to make the switch? – then you have time to build up again before they do the next one. In your case, I don’t think it would take too long.
I’m a control nut. I like to pop the hood and see what’s underneath. I LOVE the idea of all those cool plug-ins.
What I DO miss about Blogger and MicroSoft Spaces was the built in audience. I am having to work a lot harder to find the people that think like I do. G.
Grace’s last blog post – The 5 minute shift that saves brain cells
Hi Grace – Thank you so much for stopping by and commenting. I just spent some time on your site and have found some really interesting articles :-)
It really takes time and a lot of hard work to build a community – For the first couple of months that I worked on this site I didn’t really get that and my friend was about the only visitor I had.
Most of the commenters here are awesome and have great sites – and if you go visit and comment they will probably come and visit you too :-)
I think being obsessed with being in control lessens when you develop the awareness that control is an aspect of your personality.
blogger is the first blogging platform i used and wordpress helped me to become a better blogger
Arun | BE Folks´s last blog post – How to avoid get rich scam sites
Hi Arun – I haven’t used Blogger but I think WordPress is a much better
platform. One of the things that really annoys me about blogger is
the pop-up comments.
for most succesfull bloggers blogspot is their first step towards blogging and then they get into wordpress.
i do like blogger before but adore WP now cos of its extended features.
Arun | BE Folks´s last blog post – How to avoid get rich scam sites