I set up this tester account at WordPress.com months and months ago, when I was still running off the gilgamesh.ca domain.
I’m wondering if most of the development on WordPress (the blogging platform) is now happening on improvements for WordPress (the blog hosting platform). So I went back today and updated some of the links, added a first article, and so on.
It’s hard to say, but what I think is probably happening is that Matt & Co actually are focusing on WordPress.com, but not to give it more features than WordPress the blogging software. Rather, they seem to be trying to get it to feature parity: multiple themes, using your own domain, and so on …
Although, in a couple areas, they’re ahead of a default WordPress install on your own server. Blog stats and feed stats are nice touches that, of course, because it’s on their servers, they can offer.
Overall, WordPress.com is not bad … if it had been where it is now 6 months ago, I’m not sure I’d have needed to move my server to Media Temple, or have needed a server host at all.
On the other hand, there’s a lot to be said for having your own space – and for having someone taking your money and therefore being accountable for the quality of your site’s hosting (and uptime!)
One thing’s for sure: my site definitely loads quicker.
I really wonder how WordPress.com is going to make money. Will they put Adsense on all accounts? Or start charging a minimal fee?
After all, they’re not Google – I doubt they can keep doing it for free.