In my opinion blogspot is catching people young and then leaving no turning back option. I recently checked the market share for blogspot and compared it with other existing platforms and applications. Blogspot is still the market leader and going strong.

These are the reasons why blogspot is doing good.

1. USP 1: Platform
   It was always projected as a platform while wordpress (which is better in all sense) is still perceived as an application. Free Platforms always win over application.
   
2. USP 2: Simplicity
   Blogspot is simple to start with. Most of us started our blogging with blogspot [webmasterworld.com].
   
3. USP 3: Word of mouth
   People at their early stage do more promotions than later due to their excitement. This is very much true for blogging as well. People start with blogspot and introduce blogspot to others. At that time most of them are only aware of blogspot.
   

The USPs for blogger.com is due to customer unawareness

1. Wordpress application can be converted to a platform.
   Wordpress offers a multi user platform [mu.wordpress.org...] but it really sucks. I then made some changes to the existing wordpress single user and make it multi user with complete support for plugins. It has only few limitations, which can be taken care of with some more programming. Most of the newbie bloggers are not aware of other platforms.
   
2. Blogspot is only simple for the phase 1 of blogging. Phase 2 is participation improvement and integration with other platforms like technorati, digg e.t.c. I am sure Google will always have a problem with these integration. Google has introduced widgets for beta blogger but that is only integration with other google products. Participation improvement is empowered by various wordpress plugins. Financial blogs can be integrated with various financial services through wordpress plugins. Newbie Bloggers are not aware of phase 2 of blogging.
   
3. Word of mouth publicity for other platforms will tip soon. Only some connectors and mavens are need for other platforms. Once people are aware of other platforms the scene is going to change.
   

In above paragraph we saw that USP of blogspot is due to unawareness. Blogspot is catching people young and once you get some publicity you are left with no way back. You continue with blogspot with limited feature. In Technology industry people love exploring things and you will not see many famous blogs with blogspot. Tech people are different segment as they can manage their own websites so they prefer wordpress. Blogspot is catchy at first but not a good option for long term blogging.

In my opinion blogger/blogspot is not the future. I see future to be wordpress as platform.

IMO Future of blogoshpere = "Use of Wordpress as application and platform" + "niche community based hosting (hosted with niche community)" + "Integrating it with technorati and other marketing platforms"

What do you say? Is blogspot going to rule for long?

[edited by: AjiNIMC at 8:51 am (utc) on Dec. 1, 2006]