Blogger
Blogger, the blogging platform run by Google, is an excellent free blogging service and it's also great for beginners. You can add any html/javascript (which WordPress, LiveJournal and others don't let you do). It's also got tons of other features available (and they never charge for any levels of service).
Wordpress
There are two kinds of Wordpress blogs: self-hosted - Wordpress.org - and Wordpress.com, which is hosted by Wordpress. Both are free but have different advantages.
If you want complete and total control over your blog, download Wordpress from http://www.wordpress.org - it's completely free. Then go find yourself a host that allows access to your own MySQL database and allows PHP. There are several out there, some that may not even force banner ads on your blog. Installing Wordpress is very easy, and setting it up generically is easy. You can theme your blog however you can imagine, provided your host allows the PHP you choose - some will block certain functions for safety reasons.
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.
Some other blog platforms include:
- Xanga
- Livejournal
- Vox
- Typepad
- Movable Type
- Myspace
- bebo
- hi5
- bustablog.com
First answer by anonymous. Last edit by CommunityAdvisor. Contributor trust: 628 [recommend contributor]. Question popularity: 133 [recommend question]



