Blogger Me Torn

Using Vox for the past couple of weeks, here are some impressions:

• Super simple. Almost stupid simple, actually. Not that people who use Vox are stupid, but it's so basic, it's almost a serious fault. Maybe I'm overexaggerating this. Maybe my problem is that I expect too much. But when I can't even add a customized sidebar module to show off my last.fm tracks, it upsets me a wee bit.
• What if I don't like any of the templates? When are we going to see more exciting template choices? More customizable template choices?
• No track backs? Am I missing something?
  

With the negative stuff out of the way, let me point out some things I do like about our little Vox here:

• Gets me blogging in no bloody time at all. And unlike Wordpress' post editing screen, the one here works. Brilliantly.
• Spellcheck? Big bonus.
• The "Organize" area is really slick. I can see a lot of potential here for the future.
• Nice community feel.

Now I realize that Vox is still in preview form. Maybe some of this will be added as development moves forward. It does cause me to pause a bit in really dedicating myself to this service with my personal blogging, because as it is right now, it's just not enough.

I also fear what Vox's inherent simplicity will bring: Simple minds, simple folk, uninteresting posts. A community of common people. Maybe I'm an elitest. Certainly these things plague a great number of blog areas. However, with Vox's built in community features, it'll feel a little more difficult to keep yourself a little more private. All in all, maybe not what I'm looking for.

On the plus side, I do think that Vox's simplicity will bring about a surge of computer illiterate bloggers. One of my closest friends is a complete fool when it comes to computers, but even he'd be able to pull this site off. Good for him, and good for those like him.

Also contributing to my possible lack of interest in all that is Vox is the new Blogger beta. I didn't much care for Blogger before, but the beta is looking really slick so far. A nice mix of user-friendliness with enough customizable features to keep me happy. In particular, I'm super impressed with the drag and drop interface for managing sidebars, headers and footers. The color picker screen is impressive, too, and really simplifies that whole experience.

I just loaded up my new Blogger site, so let's see who wins out in the end.