What is Stopping You From Using WordPress.com?
by David Peralty on April 15th, 2008 
22 Comments
As WordPress.com continues to grab more attention and adds more features, I continually wonder why most bloggers would want to deal with installing their own version of WordPress?
The only thing that stops me from using WordPress.com is their policy on advertisements. I have, in person, begged Matt to add an advertising system. I even told him that he could keep a small cut of the proceeds, as offloading all the server issues, WordPress upgrades, security concerns and more would be a nice weight lifted from my shoulders, but they’d need to let me monetize my content.
I also think that an advertising system that was controlled by Automattic could be huge in that they could bargain with bigger companies based on the traffic of all participating blogs, rather than single blogs.
It started to make me wonder what is holding back other people. With WordPress.com you get plenty of space to upload videos, images and whatever else, and other than the costs to customize you theme, and get your domain mapped, the service is relatively cheap, especially if your intention is to create a blog with huge traffic levels. And really, isn’t that all of our intentions?
As for customization, as that’s almost always been the biggest response, with Sandbox, you can pretty much customize the theme as much as you want. And that doesn’t even include the myriad of themes installed by default on WordPress.com. The other argument I get is plugins, but that also seems to be an issue that WordPress.com is quickly rectifying as they add related posts and a better search to everything.
So, what is stopping you from using WordPress.com?
Having my own domain name, and obviously the handicap of no advertisements.
Hyder – you can map your domain to your WordPress.com account… So then that only leaves advertisements like me. :)
customization, plugins, and not being able to embed other that youtube stuff, ya i know they support dailymotion and some other crappy site, still lame.
I would say “obviously, my own domain”, but, after reading your response to Hyder, I ask myself how I didn’t know that about map my domain.
Is it a simple operation? Can I map sub domains, like my own http://www.11pixels.ciberarte.com.br?
I heart control. And it’s actually cheaper for me in the long run to own my own domain and hosting services than it would be to use Wordpress.com with comparable features.
The complete freedom to do whatever I want, whenever I want. When I feel like experimenting, I want to be able to do that instantly.
I have a WordPress.com account but I don’t use it. Even though WordPress.com has all these cool features and what have you, I can’t help but feel like I’m in a gated community if I were to use WordPress.com as my sole publishing platform. Having a self hosted blog using WordPress means I am free to do whatever I want. Freedom is invaluable.
I’ve never been able to successfully map a domain name to my wordpress.com account. To use their nameservers, they charge like $300 bucks (I think…).
I also like making money. It’s against the rules to use ads or paid posts (although you can sneak affiliate links in there sometimes, and paid posts – if you are careful…).
WordPress.com is perfect if you’re just starting out and not knowing hot to upgrade, what you need, upgrading, etc. It’s out of the box.
But as you know more and more about blogging and WordPress, you’ll surely want a WordPress custom install on another hosting.
Because I’m a control freak!
Ever heard of plugins? How about the ability to build your own design, instead of either using a prefab one, or paying to edit the CSS on a prefab design. No thanks.
And I wish they would pick a better name than wordpress.com. The whole .com/.org thing confuses people, and I would rarely recommend that someone use a blog service like WP.com/Blogger. Get a domain, a cheap shared hosting account, a good design, and install WP yourself. Use Fantastico if you must.
Freedom and control. Two things you have to pay through the nose for if you want them on WordPress.com. Overall it’s cheaper to be self hosted with my own domain that to pay WordPress.com for comparable features.
Lack of customization is the main one for me.
I like freedom in what I do. I feel that at wordpress.com I’m somewhat limited. I can’t customize it, you’re also limited to their hosting environment of course.
Lack of customization is the main one for me.. thanks
thanxxxxxxxxxxxx
Why use WordPress if there is Blogger? Blogger more easy to customize. No need any web hosting to install it. Just drag and drop to modify layout. Much template on the web. If you want a custom domain, just register on co.cc or buy a .com domain. *just my opinion
So as people make these comments about “The ability to customize,” I’m not sure I’m hearing enough specifics about what types of customizations people want. I’m thinking about this decision now, and I’d love to hear examples of the customizations people want to do they can’t do on wp.com.
Thanks