For a long, long time I thought it was a good idea to host my own blog. And, when WordPress.com launched, it really was a good idea to stay on my own website. Self-hosting was a better way to stay on the cutting edge of this stuff and experiment with plugins that provide fun and interesting ways to publish content on the web.
But, for the same reason that I gave up Linux in college so I could actually get things done (as opposed to tinkering with wireless card drivers and less-than-stellar office software), I’m giving up on tinkering with a blog in favor of actually writing one. Let’s see how it goes.
That, coupled with our $120/year hosting bill and the long way WordPress.com has come in the last year or two — offering wonderfully stable and mature features for free — has got me thinking that it might be time to switch. I’ve been recommending this service to friends who have been interested in starting their own sites for some time now, too.
Speaking of switching, the first part of the experiment, moving all of my data from kennsarah.net to wordpress.com took about 20 minutes. 1,310 posts and 1,701 comments plus attachments was a rather trivial exercise. And the site stats and linkages to Twitter and Facebook have already yielded some value, so I’m excited to see where this experiment goes.
Our Story 
The value in having my own server remains with having a stable email address. To me, that is worth the $120 a year i pay for server space and the $10 a year in domain registration renewal.
I know a lot of people consider email addresses to be a disposable thing these days, hoping between free web providers like google, but i still have the dream that my email address will be my ONLY address one day (email, snail-mail, phone number, IM, etc …).
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Wow, that was fast, Mike. 🙂
That’s true. I forgot about the email address. So, I’ll still have to pay someone to register the domain with. (WP.com doesn’t accept domain transfers, so it might stay with DH for $10/year.) I do use Google Apps for email, though, so getting rid of the hosting plan shouldn’t affect that.
(I’m seriously considering moving our church and my Newark blog here, too.)
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