When Aaron Wall, a well known SEO expert, predicted Drupal to be the wave of the future, I was just about getting very comfortable with WordPress. At the time I felt like taking the position on the subject but restrained myself because I did not much about Drupal even through I already fell in love with WordPress. Aarron raffled some feathers for sure when he wrote:
Drupal is more powerful than what the average blogger needs to run their site, but it has so many features and options that it can allow you to bolt many things onto your blog that you would not be able to do very easily with something like WordPress or MovableType.
Back in those days, and even today to some degree, a Drupal user was/is perceived to be more sophisticated, since better knowledge of PHP and some coding skills are needed to allow Durpal to perform the miracles for you.
Whether or not I have become more sophisticated in terms of coding skills or programing is very questionable. I am however developing taste for Drupal. Today I have no choice but to wholeheartedly agree with Aaron – Drupal is the way of the future. So much so, that I am planing to convert some of my well established websites to Drupal as soon as Drupal 7 is officially released.
Why Drupal And Why Now?
It’ very simple. Durpal allowed me to do things other platforms could not. More about it in my follow up posts.
One of the most detracting factors – user interface appears to be the thing of the past for Drupal with it’s version 7 release. See the slideshow bellow to judge for yourself:
In the Affiliate Marketing community, WordPress is probably the most popular platform. I think however that Drupal deserves a more prominent place among affiliates, both as blogging platform as well as website developing tool. At minimum, Drupal 7 has a great chance to be a popular alternative to other platforms.
Hi Vlad! Coincidentally, just yesterday I started looking at Drupal because of a project I am getting involved in. I will be developing lots of content including podcasts, and the community is already on a Drupal platform. I know how I would approach things on WordPress, so now I need to overcome the learning curve for Drupal.
What’s your take been since this post? Will I be able to easily include podcasts or will I be duct taping rss feeds onto posts? 🙂
I would really appreciate your insights as things progress.
Happy New Year!
Joe
Joe,
I have mixed feelings about Drupal. I guess it all depends on your needs. The reason I needed Drupal at one point is to offer event registration solution (see an example at http://thechocolatebelles.com/decorating-classes/. One thing I don’t like about Drupal is that it requires more modules to accomplish things and unlike WordPress’s plugins, modules for Drupal are not undated as frequently.
If i understand it correctly the Drupal 7 (i have not tried it yet) has a much more user-friendly back-end interface – so that can cut the learning curve.
I wanted to use Drupal to launch a community website as well, but at the last moment opted for BuddyPress.
When I wrote this post there Drupal 7 was not yet released. Are you using the Drupal 7? The version 7 is still in beta so I did not even bother to try it as I am sure most of the modules I currently use are not yet update to be compatible with Drupal 7.
So, I am still a WordPress fan.
Happy New Year! Have fun at ASW2011!
No ASW11 for me 🙁 .. Scheduling conflicts galore during January..
The community has not migrated to 7 yet. My elements would start to be implemented after an upcoming rollout, and could wait until 7.
I see that you have integrated a wordpress blog (3rd level domain) into the navigation of Chocolate Belles. I am considering that option as well .. Any issues? All I will need to focus on is a blog with great content, so if I should just go with WP in this way, I might. Just don’t want to come across as inflexible!
Thanks for the good dialogue.
Joe
The Dupal’s blocks and the flexibility that come along with them can really be a powerful thing. I see that on January 7th the sable version will be release, I will be diving again to explore it further.
The 3rd level domain for Chocolate Belles blog was rather a last resort to solve a problem we had. I personally would not recommend unless you offer multi user (like wordpress.com) kind of website. But I think it’s just my personal preference – as far as SEO goes I don’t see any difference.
When faced with learning new things (including Drupal) I often tend to forget that to me productivity is also important. Sometimes I learn things just to never use them again!
I would love to see what you did or will do with Dupal!