blogger vs your own software and blog

[jedidr]

advantages and/or disadvantages to using something like blogger vs using your own software for publishing a blog?

[rcjordan]

disadvantage 1 - they die, you die.

disadvantage 2 - they change, you change.

disadvantage 3 - you change, they don't

[dangerlarson]

Miss out on some cool add-ons and extra functionality by going with Blogger. I'll use Wordpress as an example. Since it is open-source, anyone can write plug-ins for it

http://wp-plugins.net/

So you have new functions popping up constantly.

[Mikkel deMib Svendsen]

disadvantage 4 - you build linkpop on THEIR domain

[Grokodile]

If you've never set up a blog and don't have a domain name sitting around, then a free provider can be a good place to start.

Eventually you'll grow out of it...

[toprank]

I learned a somewhat painful lesson by going with a Blogger hosted account for too long before moving to a domain name and WordPress.

There is no redirect function with Blogger hosting - not temporary or permanent. Plus there are just too many excellent plugins available for WordPress.

Worst case scenario, use Blogger and your own hosting and domain name.

Best case scenario, use something like WordPress and your own hosting and domain name.

[pleeker]

What Lee said. :) I could've written that word-for-word based on my experiences, too.

Lots of hosting companies include one-click WordPress install making it incredibly easy to get started, not to mention very low costs, too. There's almost no barrier to entry.

[rcjordan]

Textamerica goes fee-only, will delete all old, free moblogs (http://www.boingboing.net/2006/06/20/textamerica_goes_fee.html)

[Sebastien Billard]

Hosting your own blog offers more possibility of tweaking (i use a french popular script called Dotclear, also available in english).

The only thing you could miss is that you don't benefit from the platform community/popularity. But if you are a good blogger, it is easy to create your community.