There are two kinds of Wordpress blogs: self-hosted - Wordpress.org - and Wordpress.com, which is hosted by Wordpress. If you want complete and total control over your blog, download Wordpress from http://www.wordpress.org - it's completely free. Installing Wordpress is very easy, and setting it up generically is easy.
To sign up for the free hosted Wordpress.com blog - but with less design and feature control of your blog - go to http://wordpress.com and sign up.
Blogger.com
Blogger, now owned by Google, is completely free and gets you up and running minutes.
Wordpress.com
Wordpress.com is a companion to Wordpress.org, which is a more complicated version of the software you install on your own server. Wordpress.com is a very straightforward blogging tool. However, it does have more options and flexibility than Blogger.
Joomla.com
This is a slightly more complicated blog creation software. It offers much more flexibility, but is not as easy to get up and running as Blogger or Wordpress.com.
Installation of Joomla requires downloading the Joomla package file, uploading it to your web server, and configuring it.
These three blogging options are all free, and require varying degrees of computer ability.
Some other blog platforms include:
* Xanga
* Livejournal
* Vox
* Typepad
* Movable Type
* Myspace
* bebo
* hi5
* blogspot.com
The free, public blog sites
There are many sites that offer free account creation for blogging:
Wordpress.com: www.wordpress.com
* Very professional-looking templates, easy to use.
* More limited than others, like Blogger. You can't play with your template.
* You can categorize your posts with custom categories and tags.
Blogger: www.blogger.com
* Very easy to make changes to your template, add html, etc.
* Not perceived to be as professional as Wordpress or some others.
* You can categorize your posts with labels.
* Cannot delete comments
LiveJournal: www.livejournal.com
* This is more community-centric blogging, including Friends lists.
* You can categorize your posts with tags as well as your mood, music, etc.
Vox: www.vox.com
* This is more community-centric blogging, including Friends lists
Xanga: www.xanga.com
* This is more community-centric blogging, including Friends lists
MySpace: www.myspace.com
* This is more community-centric blogging, including Friends lists.
Facebook: www.facebook.com
* On Facebook, you can have "Notes" which are viewed by your friends.
Not free...
...but still worthy of mention:
Typepad: www.typepad.com
MovableType: www.movabletype.com
Wordpress.org: www.wordpress.org
* This is actually another free version of Wordpress, but it's just the platform software, not self-hosted. You need to pay for your own hosting.
Other things to know
Some blog sites insist on their blogs being personal and non-commercial. The material posted should be fair and unbiased.
You can also go to del.ici.ous website, and search for all bookmarks on blogs. There are many.
You could do the same with searching www.technorati.com
Blogger.com does not allow you to delete or manage your own comments and contacting "Help" is cumbersome. You cannot report spammer comments.
What is the best blogging site? I ran across a site one time but cannot remember the name of it, but i remember that you could add pictures with different themed backgrounds.
facebook, orkut, 2gr84u.webs.com, twitter.
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