Free WordPress Blogs -- No IT Team Needed

As reported earlier this week on the RSS Blog and on relevantNOISE, WordPress is now offering a free, hosted blog service.

The timing couldn't be better, really. With the well-publicized dissatisfaction of TypePad users, WordPress's free offer is ideal. WordPress, after all, is the favorite application of bloggers-in-the-know and many business bloggers. It's highly customizable, scalable, and - since it's an open source project - completely free. The downside is that, up until now, you've needed your own server or an IT team to install and support it. It's definitely more developer- than user-friendly. But it's a great application.

Now that absolutely anyone can use it, it'll be interesting to see who does. Will uber-bloggers Steve Rubel and Seth Godin leave their ailing TypePad blogs and switch to WordPress? Or will it's free-for-all status attract a bevy of sploggers and bring it down to Blogspot status?

It's bound to be popular -- among whom is the question here. Hopefully, the new offering will find a balance. If the developers at WordPress can find a way to keep their servers relatively splog-free, this will be huge.

And I fully expect (if history is any teacher) that we'll have to start paying for it soon!!

I've already signed up for two blogs, and, after Thanksgiving, I'll post a detailed review.

Update: Steve Rubel is apparently not a convert -- yet.

Comments

[Seth]

Hey, thanks for linking to my blog but I'm not Seth Godin. His site can be found at sethgodin.com. :)