Blogger vs. WordPress

Blogger (+):

• Super easy to set up and get started.
• Wysiwig editor and easily accessible editing of html.
• Dashboard is easy to use; tabs let you see where you are and what you're doing.
• Simple and clean layout.
• Easy to import/set up gadgets/widgets, etc.

Blogger (-):

• Limited templates to choose from. I don't have the time or the inclination to design my own.
• Only allows for listing of one IM contact in the profile setting.

WordPress (+):

• Beautiful templates! I wished I could choose more than one.
• Wysiwig editor and easily accessible editing of html.
• The html editor includes buttons for links, tags, etc., which makes this html editor better than Blogger's; also adding a link in the "visual" menu gives you the choice to add titles and targets, which is great!
• Easy to add widgets from their list (if they are not on the list, that's another story).

WordPress (-):

• They e-mailed my blog username and password!!!!!!! Aaaaargh.
• They say "howdy" when I sign in. I hate this.
• I had a little trouble adjusting to the Dashboard; it's very different from Blogger's and it took me a while to figure out what I was doing.
• Overall, the layout is very busy and there are so many choices!
• I wasted 1/2 hour trying to embed a twitter flash badge and finally had to settle for an RSS feed. For some reason, WordPress scrubs out most of the code.
• Weird formula for time that I had trouble figuring out (English major). They note that they are working on changing this.
• Snapshots of where links will take you is cool (but sometimes takes a long time to load and can be a little distracting).

For this course, I prefer Blogger. It was fast and easy to set up, and simple to use and modify. If I were going to be blogging a lot, WordPress is really pretty and has lots of bells and whistles. As a novice, I found the WordPress site to be a bit overwhelming.

I'm looking forward to hearing about other people's experiences!