I downloaded WordPress the other day and finally got around to messing with it tonight. For those not “in the know”, WordPress is a blogging tool similar to Blogger, but with some major differences like a lot more flexiblity (adding extra pages and being able to change templates with the click of a mouse instead of long republishing times) and being hosted on your own server instead of Blogger’s servers.
It took me all of 5 or 10 minutes to have everything set up and to post. Very impressive from a usability and functionality standpoint. WordPress does most of the work for you, unlike Blogger, which fights with me like a 16 year old daughter every time I ask it to do something nicely. After 18 months, I think i’ve reached the breaking point. It’s a great tool for simple blogging, but I get more and more frustrated everytime I want it to do something that it’s not designed to do. I outgrew it. We’re going in different directions. It’s not Blogger, it’s me. Etcetera.
As the fine folks at Neubix have been thinking and planning a possible blogging-related content management system (you can get the scoop on that here if you’re interested in such things) they’re realizing that while a new app for those of us who are dissatisfied with Blogger would be great, we’ve got hundreds of posts already… what are we supposed to do about them? (Apparently they call that “data migration” in the biz). All I know is I have a year and a half of more-than-daily posting that I don’t want to say goodbye to.
Leave it up to Mason to do a little research for me. Someone in a similar predicament has paved the way and you can migrate all those posts from Blogger to WordPress with very little effort. You can see all the steps here. I already tried it with one of my secret blogs (scary thought, eh?) and it works like a charm. If you use Blogger’s built-in comments, it will import them too.
I could switch over to WordPress, move the blog over to joshuablankenship.com, add a bio page, a poetry page, a links page, etc. in the space of about 15 minutes and generally make your visits here a much more pleasant experience. You’d have post categories (just want to see all the “Dear So-And-So” posts? Just want to see all the random links posts?), improved search functions, a previous/next set-up for you RSS readers, more content, and a very happy writer behind the whole thing.
It’s settled then, right?
There’s a catch. One of the main draws of WordPress (or ANY real content management system blogging tool) is that the comments are included with each post. The only reason I never used Blogger’s built-in comments was because it was slow and clunky. To combat that, i’ve been using Haloscan for comments since I started blogging. There’s no way to import those comments into WordPress’ comments system. It’s an either/or. Stick with Haloscan and lose the selling point of attached comments or move to WordPress and lose all the comments so far (or spend the next week copying and pasting comments. I think i’d rather stab steak skewers in my eyes than try that).
So… what do you think?
That’s cool that someone created a migration tool. THere are so many “blogging” options (Wordpress, MoveableType, TypePad, LiveJournal, Xanga, Blogger, et al), I think that creating another one isn’t the answer. It’s content, and it’s template - 2 separate things that intermingle to the user; but don’t need to be (and shouldn ‘t be) intertwined in storage.
The other drawback; besides comments and post migration (for any blog switch); is community recognition, support, and “free” services (most people like “free” hosting).
I’ve been toying with publishing the “blog” system I built and use; but realize its mostly a pointless effort (what really would like to build is a centralized “blog tool” that updates all the possible blog types you wish in one location; where you check off where you want to publish, your info for that area, etc — then you just post once; but you current, multiply avenues of content on Xanga, Blogger, WordPress, etc — the code to update their databases or text files would intensive, but I think that would be more useful that another Blog option)
Anyway … I’m not sure what I just said …
said Paul
at 1:30pm on Wednesday
Great to see you considering possibilities. As far as comments are concerned, I would move forward IMO. You still have your blogger site with all the HaloScan comments in place. You aren’t losing this space any time soon so you’re comments are disappearing - they just can’t make the move with you.
But don’t worry - you’ll have plenty more to look forward too…
said hynes
at 1:36pm on Wednesday
oops .. meant to say “you’re comments aren’t disappearing anytime soon”
what a bonehead..
said hynes
at 1:37pm on Wednesday
Wait.
You have multiple secret blogs?
Should you see a professional about that?
said cameron
at 2:04pm on Wednesday
I am a professional.
said Joshua
Ohh Burn.
Good one Joshua.
said Jerrett
at 3:32pm on Wednesday
I’d say start fresh with WORDPRESS and ditch your comments.
We use Moveable Type at KnowledgeULTRA™ and love it. Although we’re considering switching to WORDPRESS in the future or upgrading the Moveable Type.
If you do switch end up switching over to it, you should write about it’s features and how well it will import your old entries.
said ZNB
at 4:18pm on Wednesday
I use moveable type…. that is all.
said Brooke
at 7:03pm on Wednesday
i *love* wordpress. I’ve tried out several (plog, moveable type, bmachine, blogger…) and wordpress is by far the best for my uses.
do it! :)
said lexi
at 7:39pm on Wednesday
If you truly desire flexibility, and are now (seemingly) rolling in the dough, check out ExpressionEngine by the good guys a pMachine (http://www.pmachine.com).
Otherwise, I’d go with WordPress. I don’t think I’ve said anything worth while here in the comments anyway. Certainly nothing worth keeping attached to the posts!
said Sean Sperte
at 8:13am on Thursday
“Rolling in the dough” is the best joke i’ve heard in weeks.
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at 12:08pm on Monday
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