Blog Platform A blog, without any doubt, can transform a simple and common individual into instant artist, critic, businessman, and celebrity. A blog has the power to disseminate, spread, and broadcast an idea to any location through the Internet. Because of the countless blogging platforms available on the Web, people become more and more interested in creating a blog that will represent them.

There are actually at least over a hundred blog platforms on the Web. Some of them offer their services for free, while some require paid registration. Other blogging platforms are owned and powered by big Internet companies, while some are maintained by a small support team.

Blogger or Blogspot – the most popular

Powered by Google, this popular blog platform offers an easy, instant set-up process, free blog templates and widgets, up-to-the-minute site stats, and Google AdSense. A blog on Blogger is also capable of supporting up to a hundred users, allowing a blog to expand single editorship with ease.

WordPress – everybody’s favorite

WordPress may be second to Blogger in terms of popularity, but the former is hailed by popular bloggers around the world as their preferred blogging platform. WordPress has a vast community of independent web developers creating artistic and classy templates for them. The blogging platform currently allows users to create blogs two ways: WordPress.com is a web hosting service that supports user-created blogs for free, while WordPress.org provides users with a free blogging software or content management system for use with a paid webhost. The main attraction of WordPress.com blogs is the free inclusion of an Akismet plugin, which checks visitor comments against the Akismet web service to determine the comment’s authenticity.

TypePad – the carefree blogging platform

TypePad is a paid blogging platform that limits the user’s capacity to design his or her blog because of a blog script installed on the user’s main server. Despite this limiting feature, many bloggers still use TypePad because TypePad blogs typically require less maintenance and coding system knowledge compared to blogs on other platforms.

Posterous – the email buddy

Posterous, a popular micro-blogging service today, provides solutions for common blogging problems like the inability to sign into the blog interface due to server downtime and defective publishing areas. Posterous allows users to publish text posts, photos, and music through email. The use of Posterous can also be integrated with the use of social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook.

Tumblr – the updater

Founded in 2007, Tumblr pioneered the fusion between blogging and short message updating. This blog platform is for people who treat blogging as a hobby or a pastime, and not for those who want to use blogs for serious moneymaking ventures.

Weebly – the widget-based platform

Weebly is an online website creator that helps users easily create websites with multiple pages. The platform allows building of website pages through a ‘drag and drop’ feature. Users can choose and rearrange visible page elements according to their preferences. Weebly currently offers no bandwidth restrictions.