Have you ever come across with these questions?

1. Which blog platform is the best?
2. Which blog platform should I use?
3. Blogger vs Wordpress which is better?
4. Should I start on a free blogger blog or get self hosted with my own domain?
5. Is it ok to use a free blogging platform in the beginning and upgrade it later?

blogging platform - .we can give a simple answer to this question.It is the 'tool',that we use to built our blog. It's kind of a online software which we can use to do our blogging more conveniently. Blogging platforms provide us various options to do our blogging easier.Don't panic..You will understand more about blogging platforms when we go further in this article.

There are mainly two kind of blogging platforms..
1) They offer, blogging platform,hosting and the domain name for free
eg. blogger, wordpress.com,LiveJournal,Vox,Xanga,MySpace

2) These are standalone blog platforms.Here you have to get your own domain name and
hosting for which you have to spend an additional amount.Some platforms do charge
for the platform and for the services they provide.
eg. Typepad, movable type, wordpress.org..

More about hosting-

Selfhosted-
This is the 1st kind of blogging platforms.. They ‘host’ your blog on their own domain. After an easy set up process they give you a web address (URL) that will usually has two elements.For example ,take following URL.. http://bloggingbasicsplusmakingmoney.blogspot.com you can see blog’s name first and then the blogspot.com extension. This means that this blog is being ‘hosted’ by blogger(blogspot)

Standalone-
The other type of blog platform is that which is hosted under your own steam on your own domain/URL.


Lets discuss the most common features of the 3 most popular selfhosting blogging platforms..

Wordpress.com

• If you do non profit blogging wordpress.com is the most suitable 1 for you..
• It has nice,professional looking temaplates,but its hard to develop those templates by your own when comparing to blogger templates.
• But its a very straight forward blogging tool,has more options,and more flexible to use than blogger.
• you can categorize your posts with categories.
• Main problem is that they do not support any advertising in their blogs..Therefore if you are to make money from your blog,just forget about it..

Blogger

• You can setup and run a blog in minutes.
• Easy to make changes to your template, add html, etc,when comparing to wordpress.com
• You do not need to be professional.
• You can categorize your posts with labels.
• Even though the templates are not eye catching as wordpress templates.,But now many wordpress templates have been converted to blogger,so you can use them to make your blog more professional..
• Blogger is owned by big G (google :-) ) and it supports adsense-the most popular PTC
• ad network among webmasters, which is also owned by google, plus it supports many
• more ad networks to earn money with your blog.

Joomla.com

• This is a slightly more complicated blog creation software.
• It offers much more flexibility, but is not as easy to get up and running as Blogger or Wordpress.com.
• Installation of Joomla requires downloading the Joomla package file, uploading it to your web server, and configuring it.

* bove three blogging platforms are all free, and require varying degrees of computer ability.

* LiveJournal,Vox,Xanga,MySpace are community centric blogging platforms which includes f riend lists.


What is the difference between wordpress.com and wordpress.org?

• Both are belonged to wordpress,(I think you have no doubt about that..)
• wordpress.org is a standalone blogging software offered completely free.It is the best if you want complete and total control over your blog. You have to find yourself a host that allows access to your own MySQL database and allows PHP.You can theme your blog however you can imagine,using wordpress.org
• wordpress.com is a self hosted blogging software but with less designs and feature control than wordpress.com - (now you know what is selfhosted,if you aren't sure just go through this article again.)

My recommendations-

• If you are a beginner for blogging,and if you want to make money with blogging(Thats why you are here) do not hesitate, blogger is the best option for you..
• Later you can change to wordpress.org and start with your own domain name and with more control over your blog,(but its not essential)

Further reading: Blogging platform comparison chart