Approximately a month and a half ago, I made the switch from Blogger to Wordpress, and more specifically, to having the blog hosted at DeafRead. At the time, I had a few curious readers who wondered why exactly I made the switch.

I’d like to take a few moments to briefly explain now. The first, and most important reason, was to support DeafRead and the Deaf community. Although I’ve been blogging for nearly two years now, and I don’t consider my blog to be totally deaf-centric, I’d estimate my readership to be at least 80% deaf/hard of hearing, if not more. Additionally, neither Blogger nor Wordpress are specifically allied with or support the deaf community, but DeafRead does.

I’m not receiving any money or support for making this switch; I owe no allegiance to DeafRead, or its owners. DeafRead management does not exercise editorial control over my blog content, nor do they expect to. I was simply informed that DeafRead would start offering the opportunity for bloggers to either import their blogs or start one at DeafRead, and that I was welcome to do so or to stay put.

I’d already mused about making the switch to a different platform as it was, so it was not a difficult decision in the end. Some of the features on this platform are desirable, or interesting: for example, categorization of my posts. Uploading and positioning pictures was easier for me on Wordpress than on Blogger. The wide variety of themes beat the comparative handful of options available at Blogger. Most importantly, Blogger was experiencing several periods of outages, which hindered me from actively posting. I wanted to experiment with another host. I tried Xanga– didn’t do it for me. Wordpress seemed viable, so I decided to give it a try.

There are and were other little things as well (such as maximizing space on either side of my post for all the bits and pieces in the sidebar), and generally I’ve been satisfied with the move. As I stated in November, I left the old blog up and running, albeit without any new posts. Since then, Blogger has entered and exited a beta phase, where it apparently has introduced some new bells and whistles. I’m not sure how the new, “improved” Blogger compares with Wordpress. I suppose if I ever wanted to, I could go back and resume blogging over there. I highly doubt it, though.

The only thing I really miss from Blogger is varying the text colors in my entries. I’m hoping Wordpress will offer this option at some point. I’m also disappointed all the comments from Haloscan apparently couldn’t be moved over as well, but that’s the way it goes– c’est la vie.

I’m still tinkering here and there- especially where the blogroll is concerned. I removed a few blogs for various reasons (mostly due to the authors’ privacy concerns), and added a couple. But the small number doesn’t mean my reading is only limited to those blogs; I’ve read quite a few, thanks to DeafRead, and there are several smaller, more private blogs that I read daily, and just haven’t highlighted due, again, to the blogger’s individual desires. A couple of newcomers (and one “old” blog!) have recently been brought to my attention, and could be added soon.

As I said back in November, if you have any ideas or suggestions, comments or concerns, let me know. You can either leave a comment, or find another, more direct method by clicking on “About Mr. Sandman” in the column to your right.

That’s it. I know some of you may be saying, “Wha…?!” Yeah, no complicated explanation, no backroom deals, no excessive rationale. Simply a desire to experiment, expand, and at the same time, support a great website. Didn’t cost me anything in terms of finances or independence. *grin*