Moving to WordPress.com?
There’s something I’ve been thinking about recently. Moving this site to the wordpress.com platform.
That sounds a bit crazy, yes? Especially for a web developer like myself. Of course, the differences abound between wordpress.com and hosting your own installation but moving still appeals to me. Why?
- I could focus on content more easily, instead of tweaking the site constantly. I do that a lot.
- I’d get world-class hosting. That’s neat, and a step above my shared hosting! 🙂
- I’d join a big network of sites and bloggers. I’m liking the direction wordpress.com is headed design-wise and I enjoy the new reader experience.
- It would be fun to switch themes a lot! (see item no. one)
But what are the drawbacks?
- I’d lose ultimate control. No more custom themes or playing around with JavaScript on my own site.
- I’d have to rearrange some content. My projects and photos are custom post types so those would have to become pages without custom taxonomies. Some URLs would break since I use a different permalink structure than the standard one.
- Achieving accessibility might be more difficult because it often relies on custom tweaks not possible on wordpress.com.
- I’d have a ton of functionality at my fingertips that I wouldn’t use.
- Potential future employers and/or other web developers might wonder why I don’t use something more custom.
All that said, I feel like it’s even. I first thought seriously about this when I read Ryan Imel’s post about his switch. It’s something I’m not ready to do, but could be in my future.
What about you? Are you a web developer or tinkerer that’s made the switch. I’d love to hear your thoughts. Comment or message me on Twitter.