Wordpress is the iPod of blogs – why choose anything else?

Have you ever read a review for an MP3 player that’s not an iPod?  The reviewer is obliged to mention the king of all MP3 players, and compare the new product to it, usually unfavorably (Zune, anyone?)

This leaves the reader to pose the simple question: If I want an MP3 player, why should I buy anything that’s not an iPod? There are reasons why some MP3 players will make you happier than an iPod, but they are specific and rarely apply.

I feel the same way with choosing blogging software: Why use anything but Wordpress?When I started teaching this course in January,  I put together a section comparing the top blogging software, pointing out when you might choose Blogger over Typepad over Wordpress. I felt it was important to showcase a few options.  I am not going to do that anymore: I feel like if you are going to take blogging seriously, the proper question to ask is “What are my reasons for not using Wordpress?”

I will mention other platforms, but I won’t put them on the same level as Wordpress, for a few reasons.

Wordpress has lots of developers and designers working on improvements

Wordpress is open source software, meaning anyone can download the code for free and start making improvements.  And believe me, many people spend a lot of time making improvements to how Wordpress works,  then share that functionality (called widgets) back with the Wordpress community. There are also thousands of designers, creating beautiful (and not so beautiful) blog designs, and sharing or selling their designs online.

Chances are if you want Wordpress to be able to do something specific, or wanted it to look a certain way, there is someone on the web who has made that happen,  and is willing to share the results with you (sometimes for a modest fee).

You can host it your blog at wordpress.com or host it yourself

If you host your blog at wordpress.com, you don’t have to worry about managing a server, and you can still have your own blog address and a very powerful, easy to use blogging tool. If you decide you want more control over the design and functionality of your blog, it’s relatively easy to take all your content and host it on your own server. Not all blog platforms offer this.

Wordpress is flexible

A blog hosted on wordpress can be exported in any number of formats, meaning you can move your blog to another platform at any time. Not all blogging platforms allow that.