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Now that I’ve made the official migration over from GoDaddy’s nasty QuickBlog system and into the much more customizable WordPress environment, I feel like a big weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I can now display full text on the front page, instead of forcing readers to go through an ugly “read more” link. I can start to customize the sidebar however I like. I can have fun with page templates and style sheets, fiddling with them however I like. All in all, I think I’ve had an excellent experience with WordPress thus far.
After doing the move, I’ve installed quite a few improvements to the blog, and I thought I’d take some time to highlight a few today.
I was stuck with a partial RSS feed before and I couldn’t publicly display how many subscribers I had. Now I can. At the time that I’m writing this, it tells me that 14 people are subscribed to my feed. Good progress from the 6 or 7 I had just last week.
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MyBlogLog may seem like just another social networking service not unlike MySpace, Friendster, Facebook, and Hi5, but it’s so much more, especially for bloggers! You can build communities, bookmark each other’s weblogs, and even display your recent readers, as this useful widget does.
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While John Chow’s pinging scheme has a lot to do with the recent increase in my Technorati rankings (and my subsequent approval at ReviewMe), I think having the ability to remind people to add this blog to their Technorati favorites goes a long way. At least, I think it does.
So, what do you all think of the new layout? I especially like the Top Commentators plug-in…. maybe I should run a contest, awarding a prize to the top commentator this month? Anyone interested in a USB TV tuner?
How come I’m the only person out there that didn’t benefit from John’s pinging scheme?
Yeah, WordPress is pretty awesome. I’m liking your new blog look a lot.
Did John link to you in any of his articles, Gregg? That might explain it.
And yes, Dylan, WordPress is sooooo much more user friendly than QuickBlog.
Great work Michael! I have always agreed and utilized wordpress from day 1. Easy usage and many choices of widgets and manipulation available.
I like the simple layout. Yea, you should be on my favorites page soon. 🙂
“John Chow’s pinging scheme has a lot to do with the recent increase in my Technorati rankings ”
Just to ask, it really does that? That would be great for him in spreading some linky love.
Lyndon: It was one of those side effects that he didn’t really consider. He was just hoping to increase his own ranking.
What is John Chow’s pinging scheme. It sound interesting
Michael: I see it now. In the course of assisting himself, the aftermath was that others benefited as well.
@ Anthony I believe the link to the article you wanted a read of. ‘John Chow’s pinging scheme’.
http://www.johnchow.com/how-i-got-banned-then-unbanned-from-technorati/
Is that easy to move from one blogging platform to another? I just started with Blogger but seeing everyone on WordPress is giving me second thoughts. Should I make a move now?
It was difficult for me to move from GoDaddy to WordPress because the import tool didn’t recognize the QuickBlog format. As a result, I had to re-post each entry ONE BY ONE. Yes, it was a lot of work.
MBL cant be compared with My space, MBL is much more usefullll
That’s a matter of opinion. If you don’t have your own blog already and aren’t looking to monetize it, etc. and are more interested in the sense of community, having a profile page, and so on, I can see why some people would like MySpace.
I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I benefited from John’s ping too . . I hope you’re enjoying wordpress as I’ve just learned a lot about it the past couple of months. I think I smack myself on the forehead at least once a day for not learning about this program earlier. Question – are you going to be intergrating the “Related Posts” plugin soon? I honestly think that is one of the most beneficial plugins out there. I just have no clue how to install it on my blog.
I plan to, yes. I just haven’t gotten around to it yet.