Bill Bennett

knowledge workers – for people who are paid to think for a living

Why is Blogspot more popular than Wordpress in New Zealand?

with 16 comments

According to Halfdone, New Zealand has roughly 200 blogs of note. When I analysed these for my New Zealand’s top Wordpress.com sites list, Google’s Blogspot accounted for 50 percent of the total, Wordpress.com was a shade under 20 percent, Typepad had only a four percent share and the remainder were not immediately obvious.

It’s not immediately obvious why Blogspot (also known as Blogger) dominates. To me the technology appears dated and the Blogspot sites look inferior to Wordpress.com sites. As far as beginners are concerned, Wordpress is slightly more intimidating to use, but far more flexible and, once mastered, it is in fact easier. It makes better use of graphics and  has many useful built-in features.

So why does Blogspot dominate?

At first, I assumed it was because Blogspot, being owned by Google has a higher profile. It’s easier to find and the Blogspot name is more descriptive of what it does. These things matter for raw beginners. This visibility is probably a factor in its success.

Safety may also be a factor. People know who and what Google is, so they feel comfortable. Wordpress is obscure by comparison and something of an unknown.

There could be a mercenary reason. Blogspot allows users to place Google Ads on their blogs, which, theoretically at least, means they can earn money. Not much. In fact, I doubt if anyone below the top ten New Zealand blogs has seen as much as a dollar from Google’s advertising. Wordpress doesn’t allow Google ads on its hosted blogs. Occasionally Wordpress may put one of its own ads on a Wordpress.com blog.

Scrubone, who runs Halfdone, suggested the reason for Blogspot’s success is that it’s been around a lot longer than Wordpress. This is true and it is likely to be a major reason, even though many of the Blogspot sites in the list were created fairly recently. Being the incumbent player in a technology market is often enough to ensure some degree of success.

Can anyone suggest any other reasons for Blogspot’s continuing popularity in New Zealand?

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Written by Bill Bennett

January 7th, 2009 at 3:43 pm

Posted in Uncategorized

Tagged with Blogger, Google, New Zealand, online, TypePad, Weblogs, WordPress, Wordpress.com

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16 Responses to 'Why is Blogspot more popular than Wordpress in New Zealand?'

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  1. Other than the money factor, frankly, no. I have blogs both on Blogger and Wordpress, and I find Wordpress way ahead.

    damyantig

    7 Jan 09 at 5:26 pm

  2. Actually, that list is acording to Tumeke!, and it’s political blogs only.

    And trust me, many are not of any note whatsoever :)

    scrubone

    7 Jan 09 at 9:10 pm

  3. Scrubone:

    1. Point taken.

    2. Yes. I know what you mean. But there are plenty of even less noteworthy NZ blogs out there.

    billbennettnz

    7 Jan 09 at 10:52 pm

  4. You’ve already got the reasons I have – linking in with the rest of the google applications is pretty handy, and the name recognition blogger had before google came along was a good pitch as well.

    Having said that, more people I know are canning their blogspots and moving on to wordpress, so it could merely be a matter of time before wordpress overcomes blogger.

    PB.

    pbmcbeth

    7 Jan 09 at 11:40 pm

  5. I think it’s just a matter of familiarity with blogspot, people knowing other people on it and … possibly the fact that you can customise the CSS on blogspot for free too

    snipergirl

    8 Jan 09 at 8:01 pm

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  8. Snipergirl

    and … possibly the fact that you can customise the CSS on blogspot for free too

    Hmm, maybe. But hardly any of the New Zealand sites in question appear to have any modified CSS.

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    9 Jan 09 at 9:08 am

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  11. I don’t think it has anything to do with location, but has to do with the ease of signing up for Blogger. If you want to blog, that’s pretty easy to remember and find. Well, that’s my take on it.
    Good Day
    P.S. How about a survey for different countries? Might find some interesting stats…

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