A funny thing happened when I started what I thought was going to be a standard setup of a new WordPress blog. I expected it would be in the usual style of something dot wordpress dot com.
I started and chose the name Pangolin, and I could see that for the free option the URL would be https://pangolin.home.blog
Now I know that Automattic (the company that owns WordPress.com) bought the top level .blog domain a couple of years ago, but I never expected they would be using it to direct everything away from using the word WordPress on the front end.
As I continued I could see that in the back end the URL was pangolinhome.wordpress.com.
Try typing that into the browser and you will it change to pangolin.home.blog
Is this just something they are experimenting with, or is it a permanent change for WordPress.com?
Follow-Up
I wondered what home.blog was, so I went visiting. It is the website of A3 – Appalachia + AGI + Automattic and in the About page it says:
Project A3 Goals
Building upon the ethos of WordPress — the open and collaborative technology platform co-founded in 2003 by Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg at the age of 19 — Alliance Graphique Internationale design legends Marian Bantjes, Michael Bierut, Minchaya Chayosumrit, Yung-Chen Nieh, Alejandro Paul, Taku Satoh, Eddie Opara, Nancy Skolos have created visual designs for the web together with high school students in Paintsville, Kentucky and digital designers at Automattic in an all-remote collaboration that spans the world. The one-of-kind visual designs crafted by the AGI designers center around themes that include Home, Art, Photo, Science, Code, Poetry, Water, and Music as presented on the dedicated websites Home.blog, Art.blog, Photo.blog, Science.blog, Code.blog, Poetry.blog, Water.blog, Music.blog as permanent symbols on the Internet of digital creativity. From these websites, anyone can create a blog as a free subdomain like: laura.science.blog or philippe.code.blog, etc.
(My emphasis – text made bold)
At the bottom of the page it said to click to start a home.blog so I clicked to start a blog and found myself back where I was when I had started hours earlier to create a new blog.
Only this time as I was going through the process I clicked on ‘alternative -something or other’ (can’t recall exactly what it said) and I typed in some vaguely random words. And before I knew it I had created SearchDotPress which is searchdotpress dot wordpress dot com
So by accident I had managed to make a site with an address that was wordpress dot com rather than something or other dot blog.
This is getting out of hand and about as confusing as heck.
Photograph Works 
I think you have both URLs now.
I started with rabirius.wordpress.com and as I use my own domain now, this still is active.
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Mmm.. I have the domain photographworks.me – and if I stopped paying for that domain then this site on WordPress.com would revert to photographworks.wordpress.com
But for the site I created today at pangolin.home.blog – it is not a paid-for option so there is nothing I can ‘stop’ to make the site revert to pangolin.wordpress.com
I think that is right, but I am surprised by this all – so who knows?
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Wow! Summing up in one word: ‘why’?
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I don’t know. And no announcement, either. I haven’t tested whether it was just an experiment that went on for a few days and has now ended.
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Got to check this out … it sounds too weird.
I don’t have the same feeling for WordPress as I used to.
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Yes, it was weird. I felt like I was the subject of a ‘make things impossible’ experiment. Let me know how you get on. I wonder whether you will get a different experience.
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Yes, I’m now the proud owner of this. I skipped all those options and went for free wordpress.com
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I thought I did that. I just ‘went’ to https://cat4purricane.wordpress.com and it says “Something awesome is coming.” That’s what I got until I did the final something or other that launches it. I thought that was weird, too. I mean – why not just create it? Why the extra step?
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Yeah … now it’s «launched». This is getting sillier by the minute.
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Yep!
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you can no longer upload a ‘logo’ of your own … you have to pay to have one made.
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I thought that at first, but you can upload a logo – it just looks like you can’t – but there is an option to upload you own. You just have to search for it.
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That was painful. I’ll never sign up again 🙂
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🙂
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I keep thinking what it must be like for people new to WordPress…
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OMG … at least we’re used to it. A new user must be immediately turned off.
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That’s what I thought.
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I wanted to start a new wordpress blog recently and found I couldn’t create a free blog with .wordpress.com – the only free option was .blog. I tried again today and the options were opposite, The free option was .wordpress.com, the paid version was .blog.
Seems like they roll things out before thoroughly testing them.
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Thanks for your input. I had the same experience last night. I had started the process with a different email address and then abandoned the process when I saw it was going the ‘something.blog’ way. I got a prompt last night to finish the process – and the free option was the ‘.something.wordpress.com’ – Very strange.
What did you make of the ‘professional / arty / modern’ (or something like that) options that you were presented with?
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Modern, Sophisticated, Professional, Calm… I guess asking whether you want serif, san-serif, bold or italic is too old school.
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There was an announcement about the dotsomethingdotblog subdomains back in November. On the tablet at the moment so more difficult for me to link but I have confidence you’ll find it. 😀
PS what do you think about the no No Deal Brexit vote by Parliment?
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Thanks. I’ll look for it. About Brexit, I voted to stay in the EU. I don’t want Britain to pull up the drawbridge and cut us off from Europe. We need Europe to encourage open minds.
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