blogging?

[clare]

Hi, am thinking of starting my own blog... just wondered if anyone could recommend a site that they use to host their blog?  or if anyone has any useful tips for getting started?

Thanks, Clare

[clare]

[Rob08]

One of the best for starting up is the blogger site provided by Google - it is free, easy to build your blog and easy to maintain.  If your blog is a success and you want to take it to the next level then look at typepad and similar for paid sites.

[Cevenol Jardin]

I would not choose blogger, a lot of people using it are not too happy with it. A friend of mine offered me this advice when I was looking into which blogging software i should choose. His advice is sound :
Patrick's advice as follows:
Blogger is
probably the most popular blogging software, but most people that
use it are very unhappy with it.  It is probably the easiest to
get a blog started with, but to some degree you will be trapped
once you get started, like with F1 corn.

Another commercial blogging software is Typepad.  You need to pay
something for this, I think about US$6 per month.  Most people who
use this are pretty happy with it, but it is limited in how much
you can customize it.

The most popular open source software is Wordpress.  You can sign
up for free on http://www.wordpress.com , but you can also hire a
hosting company to manage the software for you (this is what I do),
which might be a better option if you have your own domain name. If you hire a hosting company to manage the
software, you have more freedom to change things. 
Most heirloom OP gardeners find Wordpress fits with their view
of the world!  At the same time realize the learning curve might be
a little bit steeper, and it might take a little more work to get
something that looks nice. 

[Cuke]

I've been using blogger for a few months now and not found any problems or frustrations with it at all. It does what it says on the tin, provides a quick and easy way of getting a blog up and running with most of the functionality you need. I imagine there are limitations if you want to start getting clever about things but if all you want is to be able to put posts up with some pictures, videos, links etc in then it does the job perfectly... :)