Blogging is something that is very much in transition, as the new technologies appear every day and redefine what blogging is, what a blog is capable of doing, and what a blog should be doing. Although, for many years, blogging was defined as text based websites that kept records of days, similar to a day log on a ship. However, this started to change as the group of people who kept blogs became more diverse. The more bloggers began to explore the limits of the medium and of the technology that made it possible, the more the boundaries of what could be called a “blog” expanded.

Joining an established blogging website, especially for the blog novice has plenty of advantages, live journal and blogger are just two of them. Webites that host a lot of different blogs often have very useful tutorials about building and updating your blog, and you are likely to encounter a very user friendly software interface at an established blogging website. In addition, these websites provide a kind of instant community of fellow bloggers who can provide advice, insight, and feedback. These established websites often keep directories of their members, which can be great news for your traffic logs because it means that other bloggers on the website will find out about your pages.

However, there are also some negatives to linking up with large blogging websites. Websites like blogger use established templates and when you post with them, your blog will have the look and feel like everybody else’s on the blogger website. The blogging movement is very much about the creation of distinctive websites and the development of individual voices, so it makes plenty of sense that many bloggers would shy away from the cookie cutter look and feel that these blogging websites often promote. The blogging community feels the visual look of a blog should match the originality of the article writing. Although, there are lots of bloggers who think that content is king for the blog and that is what makes it distinctive, not the visual aspect of the blog.

So you’ve decided to blog, but aren’t sure whether you should host the blog yourself or sign up for a free service like blogger.com. It’s a dilemma that many bloggers face. There are pros and cons to both, which makes the decision difficult for many. Neither is perfect, and neither is for everyone. Fortunately, you should be able to make the best decision for you if you are armed with adequate knowledge of both. In this newsletter, we’ll go over services like blogger.com and others, plus software that allows you to host your own blog. We’ll also go over the pros and cons of each. After reading this, you will know which is best for you.

Who offers free blog hosting?

Many sites offer free blog hosting. Among them are Forumer, Blogger, BlogEasy, Aeonity, BlogThing and Blogates. A quick search for “free blog” on Google reveals many possibilities.

What software can I use to host my own blog?

Like free blog hosting, there are many possibilities for software that makes hosting your own blog easy. Most of them are free to use. These include:

Word Press(the most popular software)

Apache Roller

Blosxom

Geeklog

Textpattern

LifeType

There is also blog software which you can purchase for use on your site. These include:

Community Server

Movable Type

Radio User Land

One negative about using software and hosting your own blog is that the process can often times be complicated. You have to download the software and install it to your server, which doesn’t always go easily. It’s particularly hard for those who don’t have a lot of experience installing things on servers.

Why should I remotely host my blog at a place like Blogger?

Places like Blogger allow you to host your blog there. It’s a good option for many people.

The Pros

• It’s easy to set up and maintain a blog. You don’t have to go through the trouble of installing software and configuring it to work on your server. All you have to do is sign up for an account and start posting.

• It’s friendly for beginning bloggers. Sites that host blogs offer good tutorials on how to make your blog postings, so that even someone who is completely new to the concept of blogging can do it easily.

• Most blog hosting sites are completely free to use. There is no need to pay for things like a domain name and hosting.

• Monetizing your blog is easy. Rather than having to manually put HTML/Javascript codes on your blog to manually set up things like AdSense and Pay Per Click advertising, you can select an option on most blog hosting sites that does much of the work for you.

The Cons

• You don’t have as many options to customize your blog.

Remotely hosted blogs are admittedly somewhat limited in terms of what you can actually do on them. You have to stick with what is provided to you in terms of look and features.

• The URL you get is always yourname.BLOGSITE.com. You don’t get to have a custom domain name like YOURNAME.com. This can possibly hurt traffic to your blog.

• Blogs hosted on free blog sites don’t look as professional as self hosted blogs.

Why should I self-host my blog?

The Pros

• You have more options and more flexibility. You are able to tweak the blog to your liking.

• Your URL is your address for your blog. Rather than having go to where your blog is hosted to read it, they can read it right from your site.

• The ability to make your blog look professional. Blogs that are hosted on sites of their own tend to look a lot better than those hosted on free sites.

• More space for your blog. Free blog sites usually place a restriction on how much space you have for things like photos and music. By hosting your own blog, you are able to use as much space as you need.

The Cons

• There are sometimes problems with setting up blog software to run on your site and server. If you aren’t experienced when it comes to working with mySQL, the process will be hard.

• Updates aren’t as easy to post.

• You have to manually set up programs to monetize your blog.

However, if you are good with HTML/Javascript, this shouldn’t be too hard.

• You have to pay for your own hosting and domain

As you can see, there are pros and cons to both. Which should you choose? Well, it depends on who you are and what you intend to use your blog for. If you intend to use it for business, then a self-hosted blog is the best idea. If it’s a personal blog, then a free hosted blog will probably be fine for you.

Closely examine all of the pros and cons mentioned above.

That way, you’ll be able to make the best decision for you!

If you wish to blog, upload photos, videos, music files, write reviews, and post your social calendar online in just one website, all you have to do is sign up for an account at Multiply.
Thumbs-Ups: Photo uploading is virtually unlimited, and images can be classified by albums, and given captions. Skin choices are provided to give your blogs more color and life. The URL is pretty easy to memorize – http://username.multiply.com. Lastly, RSS feeds are allowed.
Thumbs-Down: On writing reviews, Multiply doesn’t give users much freedom on customizing content by font type or color. Layouts can be edited…but only if you have CSS knowledge and even with that, customizing is still somewhat limited. Smiley list is pitifully inadequate.What are the percentage of people earning on Adsense Blogs? And how much do they earn? Get your special $97 report on Adsense Tips and Tricks!
Live and Write Freely at LiveJournal With a hip nickname such as “LJ”, LiveJournal is a website that’s especially suitable for the fun-loving crowd that’s always on the go.
Thumbs-Ups: Bonds forged online are strengthened by LJ’s email notifications for commenting. Thus, if someone comments in your blog, an email will be sent to inform you about it. Likewise, an email will be sent to you if your comment on someone else’s LJ receives a reply – whether it’s from the blog owner or another blogger doesn’t matter.
Thumbs-Down: LJ however is less easy to customize than other blogs. Some features that are already offered free by other blog hosting sites are on the other hand available only for LJ members with paid accounts.
Be In Vogue at Xanga Teenagers seem to be absolutely enamored with Xanga. If you desire a blogging process that’s easy and stylish at the same time, Xanga is definitely the blog hosting site you’re looking for.
Thumbs-Ups: Besides having community-based blogging to look forward to, each post you make will allow you to inform your readers what you’re presently reading, watching, or playing. You can also upload photos, music, and write categorized reviews. A guest book is automatically offered to users.
Thumbs-Downs: Although Xanga allows users to make use of RSS feeds; it would take them some time to properly integrate it in their blogs. The customize layout options is sadly limited, the URL provided for members is a mouthful, and commenting is exclusive for Xanga members only.
So, what do you think? Which blog hosting site do you plan to choose? Wherever you end up blogging, we wish you well! Blog on!

Blogging is all the rage nowadays. It is a fun and inexpensive way to make your voice heard on the Internet. Through blogging you can make your daily thoughts (intimate or not) publicly known – and with a greater audience.
This makes the service great for diary keeping (if making a public diary is your cup of tea), marketing (blogging is a great way to perform marketing – more of that later), and information sharing and updating.
Why Blog?
Blogging is a way of life. It is probably one of the most enabling forces of technology to hit the Internet in the last few years. Curiously, it has allowed a greater involvement of people with technology and information. The great thing about blogging is that it is easy to learn and easy to get into – especially with a blogging service like Blogger.
Blogs are, in a technical sense, content management software that helps you effectively organize and catalog a chronological journal of information that is posted regularly. It is a lot more effective than static websites that, however well managed, cannot exude a sense of intimacy, and urgency as a blog. Setting up AdSense on your Blog is a breeze, and you can complete the whole process in less then an hour. Free $97 Adsense Secret Ebook on Adsense Tips here.
In some sense, a blog can be likened to a diary, which for many people, especially those in the online world, can be much more interesting than a regular newspaper.
Blogger Comes into the Picture
Blogger is a free service offered by Google. Pyra studios first developed it with a total workforce of about three people. It achieved great success during the dot com boom and subsequently had to manage a disappointing decline during the dot com bust. How can you find high paying keywords for your Blog? Free $97 Secret Adsense Book at http://www.honestreview.info/adsense/index.html
After years of treading water, piece by piece Pyra studios was able to keep the members of the already formidable Blogger community happy. In time, Blogger boasted of a community of 100,000 members. In 2002, Google stepped in to the picture and purchased Blogger. Pyra continued to exist as an entity as a department within the Google family.

For first time bloggers, a free blogging web site is a great way to get started in the blogosphere. Popular blogging web sites like blogger and eponym allow users to set up and host a blog without paying any fees at all.
This encourages people to start blogging, because the fact that one of these sites can provide you with all of the tools that you need to get your blog up and running without spending any money means that you have nothing to lose by starting a blog. The fact that it is so easy to find a way to blog for free is one of the reasons why so many people who have never had any other kind of web presence before find themselves drawn to blogging.
By signing up with a free blogging web site, you may find it easier to get listed in search engines that you would if you were starting your own blog from scratch. For example, google runs the free blog hosting site blogspot and crawls its pages very often looking for updates, so if you have your site hosted by blogspot you are almost guaranteed to be listed on google’s blog search engine.
This easy access to search engines can take some of the work out of promoting your blog, and can help you gain a following with a minimum of marketing effort. Setting up AdSense on your Blog is a breeze, and you can complete the whole process in less then an hour. Free $97 Adsense Secret Ebook on Adsense Tips here.
If your blog attracts a large readership, you may want to consider moving your site. Many people feel that being hosted by a free blogging web site gives a blog a kind of amateur flavor that is fine for a new member of the blogosphere, but is not appropriate for a high-profile blog.
Having your own domain can help you make your blog feel professional, and finding a company that will host your domain is not difficult or expensive. Once your blog takes off, you will probably be able to sell enough advertising space to be able to afford to buy a domain and pay for a hosting package, and still have money left over. However, it does not make sense in most cases to invest in these glossy luxuries before you have a sizable readership.
Starting your blog on a free blogging web site is a great way to build a following before you spend any money on your blog. If and when your blog becomes popular and you are ready to take the next step and purchase your own domain, your readers will follow you to your new home. Most people can make their AdSense Blog sites veritable cash cows! Free $97 Secret Adsense Book at http://www.honestreview.info/adsense/index.html
The fact that it is possible to use a free blog host like blogspost, blogger, or eponym as a kind of incubator for your blog is great news for bloggers everywhere.