New Theme, and Obtuse WordPress Issues
Yes, again. Sorry. But the aim of the last change of themes was to make the blog easier to read, very important with such long posts penetrating and incisive commentaries on Korean social issues, and I think that this one is much better still.
Rant About WordPress.com
Actually, I would have chosen this theme earlier, but for being too attached to my previous custom header (no pun intended). Of course, I’d like use a theme that looks like this one and still allows me to keep the old header, but WordPress.com has very few available, and all themes seem to have myriads of small things wrong with them: if you switch from one to another that doesn’t the problems, new ones that the old theme lacked appear instead (ie, no header, quotes being in italics [translations don't look good], no tagline next to the title), and so ultimately every choice is a compromise. I think, like a lot of things in WordPress.com, that those annoyances are actually quite deliberate, the idea that bloggers start with and get used to the interface, but then, soon frustrated, choose to pay to get a self-hosted server via wordpress.org instead. Amongst other things, that has 16,000+ themes available, rather than the 60 deliberately flawed ones I’m stuck with.
Stats
I may too eventually, and recently bought the above book to figure out how to do so, but until I get over 1000 visitors a day I don’t really think I can justify the hassle of transferring this blog over to it. If you’re still reading this then you’re probably a blogger yourself, and I know that you’re intensely interested in a rival’s friendly blogging buddy’s stats, so now that they’re semi-respectable I think that I can reveal that mine are a pretty consistent 650-750 visitors and 900-1100 hits a day, and have been since late February. Actually, I’m working on trying to get out of that plateau I seem to be stuck on. Maybe I need to bring bikinis back…oops, already did that, albeit only in a tasteful and relevant sense that can’t really be repeated without being either (damn).
Update: If you’re really interested in my stats, then you need to get out more here they are in detail. They’re from Statcounter, which unfotunately only keeps my data for the last 500 visitors, so I’m sure that that the orange line representing returning visitors should really be much higher than it appears:
Anyway, hope you like the new theme, and if you don’t, well, please tell all your friends about the blog and help me to reach that magical 1000 visitor mark!
Have a nice weekend.
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I like it.
Of course, WordPress.org is freeware, and you can host your site anywhere. That is, WordPress.com doesn’t make any money if you shift to a hosted site. (Or at least, I’ve never been asked or expected to pay anything to WordPress for my use of their software.) But you do have to pay someone to host your site.
I suspect the inherent limitations of WordPress.com have more to do with the fact it’s a free service. :)
By the way, I love the template. I’d be using one like it myself if I weren’t locked into my current one.
Thanks for the vote of confidence. Gord, you’re quite right, but I meant that wordpress gains in the sense that adobe acrobat gained by being freely available.
Ah, well… but that seems a harmless kind of gain. After all, if WordPress switches to pay-per-update, most people will simply switch to something else.
You’re probably right. I haven’t used wordpress on a self-hosted server yet, so I don’t really know that much about it. I’m probably just ranting indirectly about wordpress’s recent bug-ridden upgrade really! :)
Using WordPress on at a webhost such as Bluehost is a breeze. Much more flexible, with endless plugin and theme change fun and games. I experimented with wordpress.com and didn’t like all the constraints they place on you - which are understandable if it’s a free service and you’re sharing with loads of other people.
The downside with Bluehost is that you want to play with all the free toys that are out there, which use up processing power, and then your site gets locked out for a few minutes. So then you move somewhere else to get more power, and you spend all your time on infrastructure instead of content. (Except it gives you lots of material for geeky posts which no-one ever reads !)
Thanks for the recommendation. If and when I do switch to a webhost, I’ll definitely check out Bluehost.
Naturally if I could start all over again, I would use my own host, but WordPress.com has been a good introduction. It’s not really that much of a hassle to switch over, but I think that the natural limits to the popularity of a blog about Korean sociology mean that it’s not really worth it at this late stage. If I could make a profit after taking away hosting fees though, even $1 a month, I think I would switch.
Congrats on the stats. If you want to get even more details you could use google analytics. It’s free and simple to setup: http://www.google.com/analytics
I find it fascinating to see what sites are best referrers. James, your blog is no 5 in my list. 45 people last month came to I’m A Seoul Man from here.
The list of search words that lead people to my blog is also interesting.
Thanks Jon. Actually they’ve improved a great deal since I wrote this post, but I’m still 50 shy of that magical 1000 visitor mark. I had no idea that I was your fifth biggest referrer though. Even though I prune the blogroll regularly, and try only to have links Korea-related and that are updated regularly, I still seem to have a hell of a lot of links up there. i’m surprised that people click on links there at all to be honest.
Unfortunately I can’t use google analytics, as wordpress.com doesn’t allow the javascript that it requires. Oh well.