Widen Your Blog for Goodness Sake

The current number of websites that still cater to the 800×600 crowd is staggering. I will be the last person to condemn those who maintain that size (I’ve been one for a long time!) since at its heart the idea is to serve as many visitors as possible. It’s not the worst problem one could create.
But it’s about time to consider other alternatives, and here’s why.

1. 800×600 is dying. It is. More and more statistics are showing numbers for 1024×768 as becoming the new standard for browser sizes. Thank God. So take a look at some of the numbers, and see if that convinces you to change.
2. Breathing room. White space is your friend. Widening your blog can give you much more room to work with, as well as more white space to show off for your visitors.
3. Emphasize your content. If you widen your theme you will also widen your content. I wouldn’t suggest widening your sidebar as much, odds are it is as big as it needs to be. Give the extra width to your content. Since the feature presentation of your blog is your written word, it should have the most emphasis anyway.

How big should it be? If you were operating at an 800×600 page size before, I would guess you were at about 760px wide. I would up that number to 960px wide. This still gives ample room for your background to show on the margins as well as give some breathing room between the scroll bars and your page.
If you have a decent WordPress theme, it shouldn’t be a problem to up your size. Literally, it should be as easy as changing two or three numbers. If your theme doesn’t let you do that, you should contact your theme designer and have it adjusted.
What has your experience been with your blog widths? Have you tried different options and had different results?