For those who don't know, The Daily Saint spent nearly two years over at Blogger. Life was good. I was happy. Then, something happened: I got antsy. I was reading so many other blogs and studying their layout and design. I decided to go fishing, but that's only half the story.

For me, Blogger was easy to use and the "behind the scenes" architecture of Blogger was so simple, a quality that I need for blogging. If I'm going to use a program several times per day, it's got to be easy to use. What I didn't like was the top-of-page Blogger banner and while I studied the hacks out there for making it go away, I also decided to do some homework. That led my to Wordpress.

Wordpress featured a ton of visually appealing templates and the transfer of content from Blogger to WP was flawless, taking no more than five minutes. Five minutes to transfer two years of content- that's a wow! Unfortunately, what drove me crazy with WP was the inability to transfer widgets. This of course led me to try out the free, one month test drive of Typepad.

First the con: Typepad does not allow a smooth import of content (or at least I haven't figure out how to do it!). This was daunting as I certainly did not want to start from scratch but after a few days with TP, I was sold. Sure, it costs $5 a month but for me it's worth it. Here's why:

TP is clean and simple. I can't stand a messy desk and my blog has to be something akin to this- a clean layout is a must. TP's templates are good enough looking for my taste and neat and clean. I don't understand why so many blogs are so awful to look at- it hurts the eyes.

Widgets galore. TP's menu of widgets is impressive and I have yet to have a problem with the insertion of a widget. When you are relying on Feedburner or Sitemeter (or whatever!), an easy use of a widget is a must.

Many pro's use it. Whether it's Seth Godin or Tim Sanders, it seems like many of those that I read often use TP. Could they be on to something?

TP is powerful behind the scenes. When I think back to the screens that I would pass through in Blogger compared with those that I bypass in TP, it's further evidence that TP is the blogging home of choice for me. Thanks Typepad.

Resources for the Road
ProBlogger on Typepad vs. Wordpress
Build a Better Blog: Wordpress vs. Typepad
Blogger vs. Typepad Comparison