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Online Software & Services

Broadcast yourself with a blog

Blogging services let you create your own personal news service.

By Elsa Wenzel (August 25, 2006)
Reviews
It seems like everybody has a blog lately, whether it's your cousin broadcasting his baby's latest words, your sister ranting about politics, or your boss sharing the company's rosy news. Blogs started as a grassroots phenomenon among cultural renegades, but corporations are now using them to communicate with customers. Whether for fun or for profit, blogs are the cheapest and easiest way to share your message with the world.

You can write a blog about nearly any subject, mark your stories with a subject, and voilà--your post on the finer points of fly fishing can be found by any Web surfer around the globe. Ready to start dropping your knowledge about Indian cooking, biodiesel cars, or 19th century photography? These services are a good place to start.

Blogger, now owned by Google, is free and dead-simple to use. You can either sign up at the current Blogger site or test-drive the new, beta version of the service to try some new features, such as being able to close your blog to strangers. TypePad, Windows Live Spaces (formerly MSN Spaces), and Yahoo 360 beta also let you choose who views your blog, but the nonbeta Blogger lets you create only a public blog.

Both Microsoft and Yahoo offer blogging services with a social networking element, making them share a lot more in common with Friendster, MySpace, or Facebook than with a digital printing press. Windows Live Spaces and Yahoo 360 also integrate with their brands' other services, especially their multimedia instant-messaging clients. The downside of these blogging tools is their inability to let you host the blog at your own domain name, such as myblog.com versus myblog.spaces.live.com.

If you're looking to customize your blog's appearance, we like TypePad the most. However, you'll have to pay a monthly fee that starts at $4.95. Professional bloggers with some coding knowledge should check out the MovableType platform.

We've included the free Windows Live Writer beta download, which lets you create drag-and-drop blog entries and upload your posts to TypePad, Blogger, and myriad other blog hosting services without visiting their individual Web pages. Many online word processors also let you publish blog entries.



  Google Blogger beta Google Blogger TypePad Windows Live Spaces Yahoo 360
Cost Free Free Between $4.95 and $14.95 per month Free Free
Design Templates Templates Templates or build your own Templates Templates
Multiple writers Yes No Yes No No
Makes blog private Yes No Yes Yes Yes
Hosts your own domain name Yes Yes Yes No No
Has social networking No No No Yes Yes
Tag posts by subject Yes Yes, with some coding Yes, with some coding Yes Yes
Drag-and-drop editing Yes Yes No Yes Yes
  Google Blogger beta Google Blogger TypePad Windows Live Spaces Yahoo 360
Read the CNET editor's take
TypePad
TypePad
For a small monthly charge, you can create professional-looking blogs with Six Apart TypePad.com.
7.7 out of 10
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Blogger beta
Blogger beta
Blogger beta allows tagging, as well as drag-and-drop layout editing, and it lets you wall off your blog to strangers, but most current Blogger users will have to set up another blog from scratch to try the new features.
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Blogger
Blogger
Beginners will love Blogger's ease of use and the fact that it's free. However, professionals should look elsewhere.
6.0 out of 10
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Windows Live Spaces
Windows Live Spaces
If you're tired of just reading or writing text blogs and want new ways to add life to your online abode, Windows Live Spaces makes room for Gadgets and interactive tools that visitors to your personal page can play with.
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Yahoo 360 (beta)
Yahoo 360 (beta)
Although blogging is a major part of this service, Yahoo 360 is more of a social networking tool that bundles, perhaps, too many services together.
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Windows Live Writer beta
Windows Live Writer beta
Windows Live Writer beta lets you insert and edit personalized maps and images to blogs hosted by multiple blogging services.
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