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Sean

Today is the start of a new Series, Free blogging.. Where, and why? Where’s the best place to get your free blog and what do the other competition offer? Well I don’t think it would be fair if we didn’t start this off with WordPress, it being one of the biggest blogging platforms at the moment, so on we go!

Overview:

Sixty different themes to choose from.
Option to add your own domain name.
Option to import posts from Blogger / Another WordPress Blog / Typepad and Moveable Type / Livejournal
Askimet comment spam control.
Option to make blog visible to only those you choose. [35 User Limit]
Wordpress widgets, including; del.icio.us intergration, Flicker intergration, Meebo intergration and Tag Clouds
Cannot edit CSS without paying €15/per year.
50mg Upload Space.
No option to allow FeedBurner to handle RSS.
No option for intergration of Google Analytics.
Free sub-domain: http://blogname.wordpress.com

Thoughts:

Well as you can see WordPress.com has some useful features but unfortunatly, you cannot edit your own CSS or add widgets, therefore you are really “stuck” within the system of default WordPress and your blog cannot really be unique without you splashing out €15/per year. There is a nice amount of themes to choose from however, including k2 Lite, k2 is what is running on this blog at the moment. There is intergration for some external websites that you see most blogs having these days, including Flickr and Meebo. I’m dissapointed to see they have no Twitter intergration though. As far as plugins go you can’t get any, this in my opinion aswell as the no custom CSS is what lets WordPress as a free blogging platform down.

Overall:

Overall WordPress.com is a great place if you are just “starting” blogging, or if you don’t want to have a custom theme or many plugins. It provides a way in which anyone can blog simply, with the standard nuts and bolts and not having to worry about anything! On the upside to this you can export your posts meaning if you start on WordPress.com and decide to go further into blogging and buy some hosting you can always set up WordPress on that and import your posts. For the starting blogger Wordpress is probably a good choice to go for, but for the average everyday blogger it just doesn’t have enough features.