Support » Requests and Feedback » Responding to someone wanting to switch from WP to MT

  • I developed a WP site and the owner who is used to Movable Type wants to switch to it.

    I am currently running a post on my site entitled WordPress versus Movable Type.

    I want to be fair. Are there any compelling reasons to make a WP to MT switch?

    Complaints I’ve heard are about hotlinking and spam control, but it was hard to get specifics.

    Please, in responses, let’s try not to “get religious”. When my friends ask me PC or Mac, my answer is always “it depends”, because that’s the truth. If this has been answered before here, please post a link.

    Thanks.

Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 15 total)
  • Well WP is free, MT is not. That’s one sound reason….

    As far as I know, the big MT plus is being able to administer multiple blogs from one interface, the big WP plus is free, as in beer.
    From personal experience, WP is far easier to install. On my local machine, WP can be installed in (literally) 2 minutes. I gave up trying to install MT after several hours even with tutorials and manuals.

    Add the links manager to your list of pros…along with WP Pages.

    Also, no rebuilding. Everything is stored in the database, so changes are immediate. 😉

    Oh, and WP has a badass suport forum too 😉

    WP is open source. For example, the security update took 40 minutes to be published after its detection (that’s why I love open source). With WP everything is possible, including the freedom of changing to some prehistoric blogging tool…

    Thread Starter aaron1728

    (@aaron1728)

    Free is not a good argument for me. I have no problem with capitalism if a the value is worth the price. For a personal blog, maybe, but for a high traffic blog? Saving 2 hours a year is will probably offset the cost of most any software.

    Think of the end-user here as a 40-something professional who bills by the hour and not a 15-year-old high school sophomore with time to burn.

    Links to comparisons in 2004 probably aren’t worth much time to evaluate since there have been lots of changes since then.

    It’s not clear what you want us to say, or not.

    “I developed a WP site and the owner who is used to Movable Type wants to switch to it.”
    The move will not be regretted.

    Moderator James Huff

    (@macmanx)

    Volunteer Moderator

    If the owner is moving to WordPress for the first time, he may be interested in reading this: http://codex.wordpress.org/First_Steps_With_WordPress

    Thread Starter aaron1728

    (@aaron1728)

    Sorry for not being clearer.

    The owner wants to move an existing WP site built on 1.5 a month ago to MT.

    It was hard for me to think of any compelling reason to do so, but I don’t want to be a WP-fanatic about it.

    The compelling reason is that the OWNER wants to move. If he’s paying the freight, that’s what you need to consider. If you spend a few hours of your time trying to convince him that he’d be happier with WP, and he’s not, what’s the actual cost factor? To you, I mean. Since he’s paying, he may feel he should get what he pays for, and if that’s MT, that’s how it goes.

    Is he a previous satisfied MT user? You said “used to Movable Type” – but does he love it and not want to leave it? Or does he just not want to learn new software? Does he not have TIME to learn new software? What’s his flexibility quotient?

    Moderator James Huff

    (@macmanx)

    Volunteer Moderator

    Well, I’m sure that we could go on all day about reasons to switch to WP from MT, but if you want reason to switch to MT from WP, you’ll probably have to ask the MT support forums.

    Sounded to me like he’s asking for a reason to tell his boss NOT to switch, so long as the reason is reasonable, not just blind devotion to WP.

    I would explain to him the value of Open Source software, and the resulting responsive community, with its plugins.

    Unfortunately, sometimes you have to let your client make mistakes. All you can do is offer your opinion based on sound reasoning, and then if he still decides to proceed, that is his prerogative. You can then later charge him for your time to convert his MT blog to WP. ;-P

    My husband used to drive a cab (what psych. major hasn’t?). He taught a novice cabbie something and there is a close analogy to your situation.

    A customer from out of town gets into the guy’s cab. He has a map which he hands to the driver with the route already planned out. The cabbie, familiar with the city, tells the passenger he can get him there faster (and cheaper) going another way (the cabbie’s way).

    Of course, at the end of the ride, the customer bellyaches about the fare. The lesson? The customer had his route mapped out for him. Even if that way costs more and takes longer, the customer will never be sure that any way except THAT way is going to be faste or cheaper; his mind is already made up. Best thing to do is color by numbers and collect your fare at the end.

    See what I mean? Even if you convince him to switch to WP, his mind may very well already be made up. He has to be convinced to change it on his own terms and this may not happen unless he becomes frustrated with MT for whatever reason. But the decision has to be his, unfortunately.

    IanD claimed that the big WP plus is free, as in beer.

    A point of clarification:
    WordPress is Free as in Freedom.

    Mark Pilgrim’s Freedom-0 essay continues to be one of the best examples of the importance of this distinction. It’s not about money — it’s about liberty.

Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 15 total)
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