Blog hosting help.

[Ready4Change]

I've been thinking of starting up a blog. Several friends have said some of my more farcical writings are entertaining enough to gather an audience, so I'm thinking of giving it a whirl.

I was considering using the DU Journals, but I'd rather keep my political thoughts and entertainment writing separate. (Those two personas as well.) Plus, on politics, I'm too often finding that I've a lot to learn in this area, and am shy of exposing that in a more fixed format.

So, my question is, what free blog hosting options are there? Do they only support a single, linear blog? Or can I spin my thoughts off onto tangent threads? And how does one keep reign on inconsiderate or rude posters on ones blogsite?

Thanks in advance.

[FormerDittoHead]

1. blogger and wordpress look good to me...

http://www.blogger.com
http://wordpress.com

[Ready4Change]

2. Thanks for the response.

Have you used either of them? Any idea about their response times, or if they ever fail, etc...?

[FormerDittoHead]

3. I've not used either one, but they ARE free...

...but Blogger is run by Google, your concerns wouldn't be an issue...

I don't know about wordpress...

However, Wordpress is both a hosting company and free software that you can run on your own hosting account...

If I had to guess, I'd say that Google was more stable than Wordpress (out of sheer scale) but hey, the DU goes down every now and then, eh?

Between these two, I don't know anything about advertising / banners / etc (like the old 'geocities' days). I don't see any ads on either one, so I just don't know how it works...

...considering they're free, I would sign up to both and see which interface you feel more comfortable with.

I should add that http://www.typepad.com is very popular among professional computer people, but it's not free. I know that Amber McArthur http://www.ambermac.typepad.com ( http://callforhelptv.com ) runs her blog off of typepad and that she would probably not do so if there was any doubts about it. It's $50 a year, however.