Moving Day?

On Cleaning House and Blog Sabbaticals

Moving Day by Joe_Andrews. Creative Commons Attribution, Noncommercial, No Derivative Works Licence

Well, I've been thinking about it for awhile. I'm going on a bit of a blog sabbatical. I know, I know, it's alright if you thought I was already on a blog sabbatical. After all, it is not like I've been posting up a storm. So let me clarify. I'm not ceasing to blog. I'm just going somewhere else to do it. For awhile at least.

Some Background

When I started blogging back in November of 2007, I started out at Blogspot. Two months later I made the switch to Edublogs. It seemed like that was where all the cool kids were ;-) The blogs were more customizable (you could have pages and tabs at the top of your blogs!) There was a big community. And lots and lots of other good reasons. (Unfortunately when I made the switch I deleted my original blog and didn't save all of the posts. So my very first 'Hello World!' post is gone.)

Why Go Back?

The Ads: When Edublogs started embedding ads in the free blogs I was ok with it--after all I had won Edublogs credits in the 31 Day Comment Challenge and used them to upgrade to a supporter blog, so no ads for me! When my year ran out and I was too cheap to renew I got to experience the joys of ads ads everywhere. First is was links in posts, then banner ads at the top of posts. Particulary irksome is the ad linked to my blog's byline. As I do not administer student blogs, just this little ole blog, it didn't make sense to me to shell out for a premium blog. I tolerated the ads, but kept wondering if I should move to a new home? Perhaps even host my own blog?

Google Goodness: A lot of the blogs that I have been reading recently are Blogspot blogs. I also have a couple of Blogspot blogs that I use for other reasons, and Blogspot has steadily improved over the years. In addition, when I looked into hosting my own blog I got a little overwhelmed (yes, I know that it costs $$ to host your own, but my husband has webspace where I would have hosted it.)

Is It For Good?

I don't really know. I just know that I need to make a change. Starting the Facilitating Online 2010 course has also provided some impetus to clean house. I'll go on this little sabbatical, and perhaps come back with a renewed enthusiasm for all that Edublogs has to offer.

The Wrap Up

Have you made a blog move (or thought about one)? How did it go or what is holding you back?

And finally... please check me out in my sabbatical home!