Blogging Software: What’s the difference?

A few days ago, Six Apart released version 4.0 of their flagship product: MovableType. MovableType was always a rival to blogging platforms Wordpress and Blogger, but unfortunately, it had a slight disadvantage: The cost of the software was absurd. While WP and Blogger were free for use, MT required a licensing fee to use their program. Some bloggers do use MT over Wordpress, however: For instance, all of the blogs in the Gawker Network (Lifehacker, Gizmodo, etc,) all use MovableType, and legendary blogger Seth Godin also calls MT his blog software of choice.

I write this because Six Apart is going to be releasing an open-source version of MT in the next few months, which will more then likely be free. Will it finally be able to rival Wordpress as a free publishing system? Personally, right now I still proudly support Wordpress, as I have loved this system when it was known as “b2 Cafepress.” But MovableType is unknown to me. If I see the blogging engine for myself, Will I like it more? And what are the differences, anyway? In discussing the upcoming release, David Evans of The Progress Bar writes about the problems he has with the two blog systems:

My two main gripes were that both platforms (and their underlying blogging protocols) failed to play nicely with desktop blogging clients like Ecto and lacked a serious tag management system….I remain hopeful that WordPress 2.3 will roll out built-in tagging tools.

I still want to see what MT is made of. Maybe it will be a better system then WP… (UPDATE: Mashables has an excellent comparison between MovableType vs. Wordpress, and I recommend looking at it.

But what about Blogger?

Indeed, what about Google’s Blogger? Seems like it fell into the toilet in the last few years, as Wordpress remains dominant over the Goog. Sad, really, especially because Google’s Blogspot users get something Wordpress.com users don’t get: The ability to use ads. Then again, ads really aren’t an advantage, as you could get your own advertising with your own domain. Still, you’d think that WP.com would consider a revenue-sharing program, or something of the like.

In other news….

I’ve been chosen to be an Associate Writer for PalmAddicts, which, I might add, is a MovableType blog. Guess I’ll get my chance to check out the system, huh?
Because I like trying to win cool stuff, I’d like to point out that The Blogging Experiment, which is really an experiment on how to make money blogging, is holding an interesting contest. The winner gets some good stuff, so long at TBE’s Feedburner count is 150 or higher. Oh, and kudos on using a keyword OTHER them “make money online.”