Blog Research
Want to do your own weblog? Here's a comparison of some of the blog systems out there.

My recommendation:
For total customization, Blogger rules.
For a community feel, LiveJournal edges out Xanga.

	Blogger	Xanga	LiveJournal	Greymatter	Slashcode
Ease of use (50 points)	A	A	A	?	?
Comments system (40 points)	F	C	A	?	?
email updates (30 points)	F	A	D	?	?
customization (35 points)	A	D	C	?	?
community (20 points)	F	C	A	?	?
web posting tools (10 points)	A	B	B	?	?
email posting tools (10 points)	F	C	F	?	?
stand-alone posting tools (10 points)	F	F	A	?	?
rating posts (5 points)	F	C	F	?	?
favorites bar shortcut (5 points)	A	A	F	A	?
search through topics	F	F	F	A	?
total points	720	760	775	?	?

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Blogger
http://www.blogger.com

Good:
Very easy to use. Can create custom pages to exactly how you want them to look. Instead of storing your pages on their server, it automatically creates new pages and ftp's them to your server. So you've got automatic backup of all your posts. Easy to add links as a post.

Bad:
No comments. If you store your password and username for your ftp, it poses a security threat. Community? What community? That measly "10 last updated blogs" is a joke.

Blog Research
An open letter to Blogger
In depth letter to Blogger.com about how they should incorporate comments feature.
http://www.hit-or-miss.org/blogger_comments/

Slashdot talking about Blogger and alternatives
xxx
http://slashdot.org/articles/01/04/16/0311202.shtml

Commenting Tools for Blogger
http://rateyourmusic.com/yaccs/
http://www.snorland.com/scripts/snorcomments2/

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Xanga
http://www.xanga.com

Good:
Has a decent community system, but nowhere near LiveJournal's. Email updates of each of your friends' blog. Nice list of recent comments from all topics for owner to view. Easy to add links to website as post

Bad:
Only five posts on your page at a time. The comments page can be confusing. Despite having very handy email updates of friends' pages, having to check each friend's site indivdiually can be tiresome. Friends can't view the recent list of all comments from all topics. Can only customize colors on the page. Can't type in date for date field for each topic.

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LiveJournal
http://www.livejournal.com/

Good:
Excellent community system. Despite no email updates of your friends pages, it does have an excellent one page containing all of your friends recent posts. And it gives you email updates when users post comments on your topics.

Bad:
No email updates for friends when your page updates.

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Greymatter
http://noahgrey.com/greysoft/

Good:
Not reviewed yet.

Bad:
Not reviewed yet.

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Slashcode
http://www.slashcode

Good:
Not fully reviewed yet. (see bad)

Bad:
Looks to be very confusing for a novice.

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Blogback
http://www.tecknik.net/blogback/

Good:
Not fully reviewed yet. (see bad)

Bad:
No longer accepting users.