What to use ... ?

I was chatting to my cousin the other day about a blogging platform to use.  He originally asked me about WordPress or Drupal with the intention of hosting the blog on server space he would rent each month.  His initial idea was to set up a family blog where members of his family would post updates from time to time.  He also wanted everyone to have a family email address.  All of this sounded great in theory but when we started to consider whether his parents would contribute to the blog the odds were that they wouldn't.  At the same time it seemed unlikely that they would make the switch across to a different email address so the need for a domain name became far less pressing.

So we were left with the desire for a blog that, at the very least, he and his brother could contribute to.  At that point we considered WordPress.com (the free hosted version of WordPress) and Vox.  The advantages of both are that both are free, and I believe more than one person can contribute either by being an author (in the case of WordPress.com) or by making submissions by email (in the case of Vox).

Of the two, I have come to believe that Vox is far superior as a personal blogging platform, primarily because of the ability of a Vox blogger to link in with a variety of multimedia both hosted on Vox servers as well as on other services.  Both services have their limitations because they are hosted platforms and are likely funded by advertising revenue generated by visitors.  This is particularly so in the case of Vox.  You can see it in the form of ads on the side of the page and at the bottom and I suspect all the links to Amazon that are created when a blogger references a book, movie or music benefit Six Apart and help pay for the hosting.

It is this inability to freely customise the templates and underlying code of Vox and add advertising that benefit the blogger that make Vox far more appropriate as a personal blogging platform (which is the intention behind it) and not an income generating tool.  No surprises there.

Bottom line is that Vox is an awesome personal blogging platform and while I am curious what the new version of Blogger will be like when it launches, I think Six Apart have really done an awesome job and I look forward when Vox becomes publicly available to see how it develops.