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| This image really has nothing to do with this post, but whatever. |
This new website is a work in progress, and I intend to do quite a bit with it this month. This new site is intended to be more a "static" site and less a blog, so all the big blogging activity will still be here.
You'll also notice that I'm not calling it "Three Speed Ride Portland" or something. That's because I intend to create an honest-to-goodness "club" out of it, as much as someone like me can. (See also: Urban Adventure League.) Details on how to join the club will be made available in March after the ride on the 3rd.
And you may also notice something else about the site: It's a Wordpress based site. I've toyed around with Wordpress based sites before (my work one, Cycle Wild, Tweed Ride Portland) so I'm no stranger to them. But this is the first one I've created from scratch. I wanted to try my hand at building one. So far, so good. Right now it's got a wordpress address, but I intend to get my own domain at some point.
The other reason why I've built Society of Three Speeds in Wordpress is because I'm probably going to switch this website over to wordpress as well. When I started this blog almost eight years ago (yikes!) I went with blogger because it was free and what was available. While blogger hasn't done me wrong, it's been getting clunkier for me to use. (Which is weird since I use Chrome. You figure a google product through the google browser would be trouble free, but no.) Also, the Wordpress mobile app is so much better than the Blogger one (you can moderate comments, for one), so if I want to blog (and maintain the blog) on the road, it would be easier and better through Wordpress.
Wordpress isn't all puppies and balloons, though. It's not as customizable as Blogger (well, if you don't pay money) and I don't understand why "justify text" isn't a basic option. But I'm willing to put up with these inadequacies. I'll probably change it over in April at the earliest, after Society of Three Speeds is up-to-speed. (Har.)
Anyone have any informed opinions on Blogger vs. Wordpress?
I am not a expert on the subject, but I have tried wordpress before and did nothing with it because it was confusing. At least with blogger I can create a workable template and place ads without having to know java script.
ReplyDeleteI have also tried to move my main blog traffic to other places hoping that my readers will follow. That also hardly ever happens. You have a great working blog with a broad subject matter which gives you a broader audience. I found that focusing too much on a type of bicycle, like a 3 speed, or subject matter that only retro grouches will understand will really cut down your social outreach. Those are my 10 cents.
Thanks for your almost a bit worth of advice, Jonathan-aka-Johnny. Though I think you're misunderstanding what I intend to do. This blog (whether here on blogger or possibly on wordpress) is going to be the same thing it has evolved into over the past two plus years. I'll be talking about the same breadth of stuff.
DeleteThe new site, Society of Three Speeds, is specifically for a club I'm creating, which I want to have a separate identity from the UAL. Less redirecting blog traffic, more creating a different thing.
And rest assured, there will still be plenty of talk about three speeds here, along with juicy Tom Baker gossip.
If you click on the far right button on the toolbar "show/hide kitchen sink" it will show a second row of formatting buttons. Justify text is in there. Of course you can put anything in via HTML as well:
ReplyDelete<p style="text-align: justify;"> text </p>
Robert, thanks for the tip. I've just been pasting in that html code.
DeleteAs a wordpress user, how satisfied have you been with that whole business?
I like Wordpress a lot. I mean it's not without it's issue but I think that any frontend for web stuff is going to be. It's good to know one's way around the html I think. The thing with Wordpress is that it is 100% customizable and people have done amazing things with it. There are Wordpress forums, commerce sites, plugins for everything and 1000s of free themes. The wordpress.com ones, are less customizable but if you get your own domain (which you can do for not much more than a pro Wordpress site) like my sprialcage.com you can host as many Wordpress installs as you want and as customized as you are willing to put in the time.
DeleteBut even with the free Wordpress one has a lot of flexibility, customization options, a decent amount of storage space and access to plugins all for nothing. The editor which I prefer to most of the other ones I've checked is pretty much full featured. And the updates are seamless which is nice. Oh and as you mentioned the Wordpress mobile app is great. I used it exclusively for three months+ worth of posting on last summers tour.
As someone who made the jump from Blogger to Wordpress, I'm generally quite happy. Blogger can be quite unfriendly to those whose digital identities aren't done through Google, resulting in fewer comments. Plus the recent change to country-specific suffixes on Blogger has been horribly borked, with pages randomly refusing to load outside the USA without the '/ncr' suffix. However, Wordpress isn't perfect either, and the change will lose you some traffic unless you slowly kill off the old site.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I think the part that worries me the most is not the challenge of the new, but the possible loss of traffic in the move. I will keep the blogger site up indefinitely, so that won't go away. I worry more about the casual followers and those who "follow" me via a reader but are not judicious about reading entries. They may not see the whole "I'm moving to Wordpress" thing and then wonder why entries from me trickle to a halt. There is no easy way about it, but I feel like it's a good time to make a break.
DeleteI love wordpress. I switched over because I don't like the google emporium and because I wanted to have my own url sans "blogspot." (which perhaps you can do with blogspot, but it seemed easier with wordpress). Granted, I don't do anything crazy with my blog, but thus far I've been able to do everything I want.
ReplyDeleteRe: the potential loss of traffic, you could probably post some version of "I'm moving to this new blog" or "I just posted on my new blog" a few times to catch people with readers who might need a few nudges to get over;)
-stasia