The increase in the popularity of blogging spawned a number of websites offering blogging services.
Blog.co.uk,
Blog.com and
Blogger.com are three of the most popular. I'l take a look at which one you should go for. (Note: I'm only reviewing the free services offered by these websites, not upgraded, paid for services.)
Blog.co.ukSign up to Blog.co.uk and you can create one blog on your account. As you would expect you choose an available subdomain name and you get a URL that looks like this [your blog name here].blog.co.uk. Although subdomains aren't great the blog.co.uk domain name isn't too lengthy and is easy to remember so it should be no problem for you and your readers to access your blog.
For writing your posts Blog.co.uk offers the standard formatting functions as well as image and text link buttons, you can also write your own html so if you're looking to practice your coding skills then this is the place. If you do want to write your own html be sure to choose the new editor when writing new posts.
On to creating your blog's design. Design is split into three sections named layout, content and style. In layout you basically choose the number and position of columns in your blog, in content you can add and remove different 'contents' to your blog page including tags, a search box, and a friends list. Finally, in the style section you make choices for the header background, text colour, text font and style. You have to upgrade to a 'Pro account' if you want to change these properties for the main body of your blog.
After you've put the finishing touches to your blog's design you're ready to start posting. A good feature of blog.co.uk is the ability to keep track of the number of visitors to your blog each day and the total number of page views. In addition to this are standard settings such as picking your time zone and the number of posts on your main blog page.
That sums it up for Blog.co.uk, although it offers all the standard blogging features it is disapointing that an upgrade to the Pro account is needed in order to have full customisation of your blog's design and to create additional blogs.
Blog.comBlog.com advertises the process of setting up a blog as 'signup, create blog, customize blog, success'. Signing up and creating the blog is easily done, however customising your blog and getting it the way you want it to look is a hassle. This is down to the design sections such as blog width and layout all being separated into different pages. It quickly becomes tedious navigating between these and in the end you will probably settle for one of the pre-designed templates. Unfortunately, these aren't all that great so design is a big negative for blog.com.
Posting features are identical to those of blog.co.uk so expect standard formatting options and html editing. Should you be worried that something might happen to your blog you can 'back up' your blog anytime by saving it to your computer in either Atom or RSS format.
Images can be uploaded to an album which can then be used in your profile page or blog. An advantage that blog.com has over blog.co.uk is that you can create more than one blog without having to pay anything so if you're planning to do just that then make sure you don't waste your money on blog.co.uk.
Blogger.comBlogger.com is owned by Google and it's clear that they've done some work to ensure that this service outshines its competitors. First of all, you are not limited to a subdomain for addressing your blog, you can host the blog on your very own domain as long as you have access to an FTP server (comes with all web hosting accounts). The obvious benefit of this is that if you buy a domain you don't have to create your own blogging website, you can just use the service offered by Blogger.
And that service is pretty good. All the areas for managing your blog are easily accessed via tabs at the top of the page once you've signed in. The 'template' section for Blogger tops both the design sections for blog.co.uk and blog.com. You can choose from a wide selection of templates all with different variations, then you can refine the template you have chosen further by editing the html directly or editing the fonts and colours easily using the simple interface.
Changes to the layout can be made under the 'page elements' tab where you simply click and drag where you want things to go. Here you can also add and delete elements from your blog page, some of these elements are very good including Google's Ad Sense which you can make money out of and in particular the 'html / JavaScript' element which gives you endless possibilities for what to put on your blog.
Posting features include adding images and video and editing the html. There are also numerous settings you can adjust if you need to.
In summary I was very impressed by Blogger and particularly by the fact that you do not have to pay extra for all these features. Its definitely something you should consider.
ConclusionAlthough
Blog.co.uk and
Blog.com do have unique features and are overall good blogging services, I think
Blogger.com is the winner out of the three and I make it my highest recommendation to you if you are looking to start blogging. The ease of use, customisation and limitless options and settings it offers means it shouldn't be missed.
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Tech-Ace.
