Ever thought about starting a blog? Many people do. According to Technorati, more than 175,000 new blogs are started every day, but they don’t say how many of those actually keep on being updated a couple of weeks after the first post. The hassle of maintaining a blog and finding new topics to talk about is what hinders most people from joining the blogosphere. But, we’d like to encourage you to give it a try. Blogging is fun and easy, and we’ll show you why.
First, note that there are two main options for blog publishing: you can either host the blog in your own web server or let it be hosted by the blogging service you use. The latter is probably the best option for beginners, as it doesn’t involve dealing with FTP transfers and server configuration.
Regarding blog hosting services, the most popular one is Blogger. It allows you to create a blog in 3 simple steps: register as a user, choose a name for your blog and select a template. Once done, log in into Blogger’s website and you’ll be able to start writing right away. Blogger includes an easy-to-use rich-text editor, allows you to embed pictures in your posts (also hosted on their servers) and supports user comments and RSS syndication feeds.
However, if you have your own web space – along with a little more experience, you’d probably prefer to manage your blog on your own. There are many blog publishing systems, WordPress being the most famous one. Wordpess is quite easy to install and extremely flexible in configuration and customization options. The list of WordPress resources (plug-ins, add-ons, themes) you can find on the Internet is almost endless. It’s so good, even insideTonic uses it! In case you don’t quite understand how to set up and manage your own server, you can still use WP via their hosted version, WordPress.com 
Finally, if your problem is that you don’t feel like writing that much every day, you can always create a blog with Tumblr. The so-called tumblelogs are a variation of blogs that can be maintained with no effort. They’re specially designed for occasional bloggers who prefer to write short posts with a quote, a picture or a video they just stumbled upon. Easy as pie!
As you can see, there are plenty of services and tools you can use to start your own blog. Laziness is no longer a valid excuse and as for the topic, just choose anything you love: from software to knitting, anything goes.
