VistaPrint first gained fame as the company that would send you a few hundred business cards for free. And so a million small businesses ordered the free cards and would eagerly scatter them to prospects, clients and colleauges. The caveat was that the back of the business cards said Get your own free business cards at VistaPrint.com. These spankin’ new business cards told the recipients the business’s contact info but also that they were too cheap to drop a whole thirty dollars on custom made business cards that advertised their business, not VistaPrint’s.
And so anytime a business uses dirt cheap or half-assed solutions for their business, I call it The VistaPrint Syndrome. This is beyond starting business on a shoestring or bootstrapping… You’re starting it on a stale ricecake, an eye booger and a dream.
And so it is with Blogger. I roll my eyes every time a business announces their new business blog and the address is at blogspot.com. I’ve been accused of being a blog bigot for telling clients to not use Blogger under any circumstances. Using Blogger and the free Blog*Spot hosting is basically telling the rest of the world that you’re too cheap to spend a few dollars for a halfway decent blog for your business. You’re too cheap to pay for web hosting, too cheap to pay for a 1-click install of WordPress, too cheap to pay for a domain-mapped TypePad blog. Business bloggers who use Blogger/Blog*Spot are telling the rest of the world not to take them seriously.
Sure it is just a blog. Blogs are supposed to be fun. Cheap and free was the initial allure of blogs. That was great at the beginning. I expect this same trend to eventually apply to WordPress.com once newbies figure out that the .com is the free hosted product and the .org is the free installable software – hopefully by the .com will have domain mapping.
Having a Blog*Spot blog and expecting someone to be impressed is like having a Yellow Pages listing and expecting them to go Oh. Wow. Shocker. You’re listed in the phone book.
Solutions?
- Buy a domain name, get hosting for it, publish with Blogger to your own domain name.
- Move your blog to a service like TypePad or BlogHarbor and domain map it.
- Date/marry/hookup with a geek, have them install WordPress, Movable Type or TextPattern for you and be done with it. And then dump/divorce them if necessary.
If we want business blogs to be taken seriously we have to raise our expectations of our blogs and the newbies just starting out. Each time some company says Go to our blog at yadda-yadda dot blogspot dot com we should all feel as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.
Final word: I love VistaPrint. They are a great service and their express shipping option is a dream. I love Blogger. I started with them five years ago with my personal blog.
Andy-You’re gonna make me tear up. It was so easy to start with blogger and I learned a ton but you are right and changes are in the air. The good news was the chep blog got my speaking website recognized by the search engines in short order!
Comment by Steve Mertz — January 31, 2006 @ 7:01 pm
Andy,
You’re exactly right. But it’s not just blogspot, it’s ANY blog that becomes chained to its platform or hosting because of its domain name.
I made the mistake originally when I started with a default design and the Typepad-esque url of http://flyte.blogs.com. Now I own my own domain and have redesigned my blog to complement the rest of my marketing material.
The first two steps any BUSINESS blogger should take is to get a domain name you can take with you and get some design (even just a header) that separates you from those who blog about their pets.
Comment by Rich Brooks — February 1, 2006 @ 9:41 am
Excellent point Andy! As a business blog consultant, I have preached to my prospective clients to embed their business blog within their business website. Apart from not appearing “cheap”, the business can benefit in terms of search engine ranking, keeping propective clients (who are reading the blog) in close vicinity of products or services, contact information and client profiles.
If a business owner is not web-savvy and wants a business blog then he/she should be willing to pay a few hundred dollars to get a business blog setup within the website. It is worth it.
I have included an example of a business blog embedded within the business website. This was done for one of my clients whom I managed to convince that embedding a business blog within the website is a good practise http://www.marysladekinsurance.com .
Comment by Harish Keshwani — February 4, 2006 @ 10:12 am
[…] My cross-post from Biz Blog Consulting: VistaPrint Syndrome aka Stop Using Blogger Track this topic on other blogs: blogger, blogging, marketing, business […]
Pingback by Don’t Use Blogger — February 9, 2006 @ 9:02 am
It’s wrong to make sweeping comments like this when there are so many factors that determine the correct solution for the millions of people who blog. Heck, I’d even venture to say that for 90% of all blogs it doesn’t matter squat whether their url is their own domain or subdomain.blogspot.com or whatever. For the most part, a blog is about you, the blogger, not about the url.
Having said that, I presume that you’re speaking primarily to people who use a blog as a marketing outreach tool for their business to communicate with its customers. I would say that for the most part, those cases would fit into the 10% of people who shouldn’t use a blogspot subdomain. However, I wouldn’t suggest they not use Blogger at all, as Blogger can as easily be hosted on your own domain as on a blogspot subdomain.
I would aslo presume that a business would already have a website, so instead of buying a stand-alone domain for a blog, a subdomain of their business website would work best. So, I really don’t think telling people that they’re cheap if they don’t buy their own domain is the best of advice either.
Comment by Peter T Davis — February 9, 2006 @ 10:55 am
This is about ‘business blogs’ not everybody else ergo ‘businesss blog consulting’. If a business already has a domain then this article doesn’t even apply.
A blog is about the blogger – once they get to your blog. But if they can’t find your blog easily with a memorable domain then the efforts are pretty pointless.
Re: hosting at your own domain with Blogger – you’ll see I mention that above.
There are very few ‘right answers’ when it comes to business blogs but owning your links and the domain they point from is primary.
Comment by Andy Wibbels — February 9, 2006 @ 11:19 am
Actually, your post reads like a rant against Blogger, not against hosted blogs.
Comment by Peter T Davis — February 9, 2006 @ 11:39 am
I agree with Andy completely (boy am I late in the game here). I also started my blog with Blogger and moved to a Blogware-powered blog (BlogHarbor is a reseller) (Disclosure: My personal blog is sponsored by Blogware).
The other thing to consider is portability. Even with my own domain, I’m stuck with Blogware. I really like Blogware but I also like WordPress. Consider the whole permalink issue. Blogware-blogs can be imported into WP (I’ve done it and it doesn’t hurt too, too much), but the permalinks can’t be redirected so even with your own domain, all your old links and Google juice are gonzo.
I recommend to clients to spend the few bucks ($10 for the domain, $5-10 a month for hosting) to have something of their own. If they want to go hosted … I like wordpress.com … of course it’s portability remains uncertain.
Comment by Tris Hussey — February 9, 2006 @ 2:21 pm
Andy,
You are absolutely right.
If someone can’t afford the $9.20 for a domain, they should just ask their mommy for a bigger allowance.
And if they have a WP blog with no header and no mods to the theme, maybe their mommy should give them an even bigger allowance.
Comment by Mike — February 9, 2006 @ 10:13 pm
Is that a snark? 🙂
I’d rather have someone using Kubrick default in WordPress with their own domain than be at blogspot.com. But it’s all relative…
(If you’re referring to my own blog you’ll see I’ve actually done quite a few tweaks to the templates both in the PHP templates and in Fireworks. Maybe I’m reading too much into it.)
Comment by Andy Wibbels — February 9, 2006 @ 10:19 pm
[…] VistaPrint Syndrome aka Stop Using Blogger : Business Blog Consulting (Via Easy Bake Weblogs.) Andy Wibbels: “Using Blogger and the free Blog*Spot hosting is basically telling the rest of the world that you’re too cheap to spend a few dollars for a halfway decent blog for your business.” Not that I’m in business for myself (just yet), but this is sure making me feel good about my move to WordPress. The analogy with VistaPrint is worth a quick read. […]
Pingback by Educational Technology and Life » Blog Archive » VistaPrint Syndrome aka Stop Using Blogger : Business Blog Consulting — February 12, 2006 @ 8:55 pm
how do you map a domain name to a blog in BlogSpot without doing a redirect? Unless I’m wrong, don’t think its possible?
Comment by groovy — February 13, 2006 @ 5:06 am
Vistaprint’s idea may seem “half assed” to you but if you look under VPRT on the American Stock Exchange you” see VistaPrint selling at $30 – up from a $12 or so IPO less than six months ago.And those cards are printed on a high volume printer that cost millions t
Comment by Chas Boodro — March 13, 2006 @ 10:17 pm
I am a self-made multimillionaire who can afford to start or buy an entire blogging company, much less a blogging account, if I wish. I use the free Blogger service for my Get Rich Quick! website. I love it. I get great satisfaction at the hundreds of attacks from minimum wage morons who think they’re something because they pay for something I use for free (And they’re on MY site, ranting). Whenever they rant “If you’re a millionaire, how come you use a crappy free blog?” I take a sip of cognac, ask my supermodel masseuse to rub a bit lower, and think “Why do you think I’m a millionaire and you’re not, loser?”
Millionaire Richard Quick, Esq.
Comment by Millionaire Richard Quick, Esq. — April 7, 2006 @ 5:25 pm
(If you’re referring to my own blog you’ll see I’ve actually done quite a few tweaks to the templates both in the PHP templates and in Fireworks. Maybe I’m reading too much into it.)
Comment by å…¬å?¸æ³• — April 24, 2006 @ 9:32 am
i agree, i can’t stand vistaprint. they have horrible customer service and their cards aren’t anything i couldn’t make myself. I decided to switch to http://www.printsmadeeasy.com a long time ago and the results have been great, they even gave me a 15% off code, CLC5123 if anyone wants to use it
Comment by MikeB — January 26, 2007 @ 4:26 pm