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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