Blogger is a Google owned blogging system, and is highly popular with non tech savvy people. It gives you a basic frame to build on – and is less flexible than either version of WordPress hosted blogs.
However, Blogger is a great option if you really don’t want to modify anything to do with your blog, other than the theme and possibly add some surface widgets.
Blogger also lets you archive your blog on your own site, giving you all of the benefits of self hosting with none of the update headaches.
Ultimately, there are more software options for your blog – such as Moveable Type (perl based) and Typepad (hosted, by the same company that offers Moveable Type and Livejournal). Moveable type is not free for commercial purposes – another one that isn’t free, but is a really solid blogging package is Expression Engine – again, you’ll have to make sure that you get a valid licence for it, for the purposes you want to use it for.
All of the options will give you a blog that you can build a solid base from, but of course ultimately, where you want to build your blog, be it on your own website or via Blogger (to archive on your site) or hosted with another site, you’ll have to stick with what you choose – purely for the fact that you’re going to be promoting it – and the last thing you want is to move on after a couple of weeks cause you’ve played with the others and discover you prefer one over the other.
There is NO HARM in testing them all out first and getting comfortable, if you’ve never blogged – or haven’t explored for a while. WordPress (self hosted) is easy to install ‘vanilla’ (no plugins or themes) via Fantastico – just follow the instructions presented and it’ll install a simple WordPress install in around three clicks.
Once you’ve gotten comfortable you’ll need to decide on your theme – you’ll also want to pick plugins for WordPress, play with certain features in Blogger, and add widgets in other programs. We’ll cover the plugins and other features for Blogger at the end of the book – for the moment, all you need do, now, is to find a theme you’re comfortable with.