Two years ago or so, I registered a weblog at Blogger, which only lasted a week (don't bother looking for it; it was deleted). At that time, I didn't like that site much, specially because it lacked a very important feature: integrated support for comments. Yes, you could use external utilities/sites to host comments, but that was complex.

However, a few minutes ago, I discovered that they now have comments support; yay! I spent some time surfing their site and found it very intuitive. Also, I registered a new weblog (whose name I won't unveil yet, but a friend of mine will know which it is ;-) just to see which features they support now.

And all I can say is that it seems better than Livejournal... Here are some reasons:

  • Blogger applies the weblog style to all pages: posts and comments. Here at Livejournal, only the front page gets the look you design, but all comment ones have a standard, non-customizable and ugly look (I don't know about paid accounts).
  • As regards the style, Blogger lets you customize it completely, editing the HTML code directly. Livejournal does not let you do this unless you have a paid account.
  • Blogger addresses are shorter and easier to remember: http://<blogname>.blogspot.com/ vs. http://www.livejournal.com/users/<user>.
  • The blogger interface seems to be more intuitive than Livejournal's one.
  • Blogger lets you post images on your blog (without external links).
  • Blogger lets you post by e-mail.
  • Neither Livejournal nor Blogger have support to track blog statistics. However, Blogger lets you add statistics trackers from other sites, which is a plus.
  • My beloved Drivel supports both systems, so easier migration from this POV.

So... I'm seriously considering migrating this blog there, because the reasons mentioned above. However, there are two things against this idea: people will have to update their address (though I don't think there are many readers out there ;) and, worst of all, I don't know if it's possible to easily migrate all the existing posts to the new site (and this is a must).

Anyone has comments on this? Any counter-arguments or suggestions? :-)

Edit 18:08: The statistics item was added.