for start – when free – you can customize almost nothing:
can’t install analytics, can’t install plugins, can’t even customize css..

and on top of that – as you wrote here (thanks for that!) they can cancel my blog at any time..

after using lots of these free blog platforms I concluded that the best is to just get domain name, hosting , mysql database, and off we go. Don;t you think?

Anyway, thank you for informative post, I actually recommended wordpress.com to my friend, but now thanks to you and this “may terminate …at any time” got to recomend sth else
thx
chris

Many webmasters use 2.0 websites for backlinking. Wordpress.com is great for this since the site carries a lot of weight. But you still have to work hard and blog. Just because it has good PR does not mean you can short change your work.

You really don’t need any proficiency with php or mysql (or even html for that matter) – wordpress is geared towards those who don’t have any programming skills, which is why it’s become so popular. The only time you’d need anything like that is if you want to customise your theme – but you don’t have to do this unless you want to!

Also, setting up your site is a breeze using Fantastico – you just fill in a couple of fields in a wizard and voila!

Thanks for that reply. There is a way of incorporating videos if you write the post using ‘Add New Post’ from the dashboard. There is an icon to click to include a video. Largely for major sites such as YouTube you simply end up copying the URL into a box and WP converts that into a shortcode.

If the video doesn’t come from one of the supported services, then the way to do it is to use a vodpod.com account and link it to the wordpress.com blog. I did that regularly at Advent and Lent in recent months when I was featuring daily videos from the Damaris Trust.

The one main disadvantage is that you have no control over the placement of the video in the post. It seems by default to be centred. If you wanted to place it on the left or the right and have text flow alongside it as you can with a JPG image, you are out of luck.

Many thanks for the offer of help if I go to wordpress.org – very tempting! One other concern I’d have is this: while I know a little HTML, I really don’t know PHP or MySQL. Would I need any proficiency in them?

As far as technical aspects of wordpress.org sites – yes, there is more of an onus on the site owner to take responsibility for smooth running of the site – applying upgrades, backups, and that kind of thing. Honestly though, I wouldn’t say it’s a big deal, especially once you’ve got everything set up. With every release, wordpress is becoming more and more self-contained (for instance you can apply upgrades from within the admin console). I expect pretty soon you’ll be able to install themes from within the console too. And if you were to get stuck, I’d be happy to lend a hand!

One disadvantage I haven’t noticed being mentioned above (unless I’ve missed it) is the inability to run Javascript widgets on wordpress.com. I know it’s implicit in the ban on monetisation, but there are plenty of other JS widgets I’d like to deploy that I can’t.

Ultimately, I’d like to move my domain to wordpress.org, but two factors prevent me. One is that we have to watch every penny (although your prices are excellent, Rod). The other is the time I might need to invest in the midst of a busy life. I’ve noticed several comments on wordpress.org blogs about problems people have had with new themes, the database or other woes. So for now, it’s still wordpress.com, even if in theory I’d like the challenge of the move!

Sure, it’s not as easy to use but it’s not that difficult either.

Also, when moving from wordpress.com to wordpress.org you can run into issues (such as pictures being linked back to wordpress.com, not good for SEO purposes) that further support starting off with wordpress.org so you don’t have to worry about it down the line.

But for people who just want to blog for fun and toy around with it, wordpress.com is a great way to test it out without making a financial commitment.

You’re basically running your own wordpress.com, since each new blog runs on a subdomain. blog1.yourdomain.com, blog2.yourdomain.com, etc. It needs a special setup in your DNS settings for the wildcard subdomains you’ll need.