Update: I've written a companion post about some of the market share info I found about blogging platforms as well as a bit about data visualization.
I'm teaching a class this fall at UBC on Social Media Fundamentals. Very excited about it! One of the areas we're covering is, as you would expect, blogging. I wanted to put together a little comparison table to help people choose a blogging platform. I'm making some assumptions: that the platform will be hosted (no Wordpress self-installs) and that the people who will be managing the blog are not super-technical.
So, I put together a list of criteria. It includes:
- Cost (both initial and "add-ons")
- Allows a unique domain name
- Is there a theme library and/or a template designer
- Easy to Use for Non-technical users (1=easy; 5=hard)
- Allows you to export your content
- Analytics options
If you were a small or medium business owner, what else would be important for you to know. I'm not doing a feature by feature comparison because I don't think it's necessary. Most of the features are similar (e.g. offering both "pages" and posts) - to me, the true difference comes down to how intuitive and "friendly" the interface is.
Am I missing anything really important?
The blog platforms I'm including are:
- Typepad
- Wordpress
- Blogger
- Tumblr
- Posterous
I've embedded the doc below (or follow the link) if you want to take a look. And I realise that the 4th criteria (easy to use) is completely arbitrary. So you Wordpress fans - don't jump on my case. My experience of Wordpress isn't delightful. And, I recognize that I have a bias towards Typepad since I've been using it for 5 years. I promise I will disclose all my biases to my class :)