In today's issue of the Wall Street Journal, Walt Mossberg reviews a number of blog hosting services in the article Taking the Mystery Out of Blog Creation. The article describes the experiences of Walt and his assistant Katie in building their test blogs including http://spaces.msn.com/members/wmossberg and http://kaboehret.blogspot.com/. He writes
This past week, my assistant Katie Boehret and I tested three of these free blog-creation services to see what they offer. We tried the popular Google-owned service, Blogger.com, as well as Microsoft's new MSN Spaces service, each of which is estimated to host millions of blogs. We also tested Yahoo's Yahoo 360 service, which still is in its test phase. We quickly learned how simple it is to set up a blog, and how addictive they can become. While using these three sites, we paid careful attention to how each blog-creating service handled four basic tasks: publishing text entries, or "posting" as it is called in blog land; adding photos; publishing links to other Web pages on our blogs; and providing privacy (if desired) online. We also took note of the overall style and formatting options provided on each site. Our verdict: Microsoft's MSN Spaces did the best job of performing these tasks in a way that was organized and self-explanatory. Yahoo 360 was almost as easy, but it tries to tie in the use of too many other Yahoo services. Blogger.com has a long way to go until it becomes as easy to use as the others.
This past week, my assistant Katie Boehret and I tested three of these free blog-creation services to see what they offer. We tried the popular Google-owned service, Blogger.com, as well as Microsoft's new MSN Spaces service, each of which is estimated to host millions of blogs. We also tested Yahoo's Yahoo 360 service, which still is in its test phase. We quickly learned how simple it is to set up a blog, and how addictive they can become.
While using these three sites, we paid careful attention to how each blog-creating service handled four basic tasks: publishing text entries, or "posting" as it is called in blog land; adding photos; publishing links to other Web pages on our blogs; and providing privacy (if desired) online. We also took note of the overall style and formatting options provided on each site.
Our verdict: Microsoft's MSN Spaces did the best job of performing these tasks in a way that was organized and self-explanatory. Yahoo 360 was almost as easy, but it tries to tie in the use of too many other Yahoo services. Blogger.com has a long way to go until it becomes as easy to use as the others.
It's great to see the validation by both our users and reviewers like Walt Mossberg of the design choices we've made in attempting to bring blogging to a more widespread audience.
I'd like to thank all the folks who've been giving us great feedback; reviewers like Walt, various folks who leave comments in my space or Mike's or Scott's, the people who've added stuff to the MSN Spaces wiki, and the good people at work who send mail to the various Spaces mailing lists. You're feedback makes us better. Thanks.