I have this question come up so much — “What is the difference between a blog on wordpress.com and a blog on wordpress.org? Which should I do?”

Let’s get some terminology straight first: a blog that you create at wordpress.COM is a hosted blog — you don’t need a hosting account, you don’t need to mess with installation, etc. A blog that you create with software that you find at the wordpress.ORG site is called self-hosted — you need to establish a hosting account, install the software, perform all of the upkeep and related maintenance by yourself.

There are two main disadvantages to using a hosted blogging solution (and this applies to blogger.com and other hosted solutions): #1, most hosted blogging services carry heavy restrictions on what you can do with your blog, and what you can say on it; #2, you don’t have real control over your content. If the blogging service you’re using folds or goes under (unlikely, but it happens — witness the current troubles at LiveJournal) you’ve lost ALL of your content. Not a good position to be in.

On the other hand, self-hosting your own blog or blogs has some disadvantages too. While you don’t have to be really technical, there is a definite learning curve. But the rewards are worth the effort. Your content is your own, nobody can tell you whether to monetize your sites or not, and on and on.

So how do you get started with your own, self-hosted WordPress blog?

Coming soon… 🙂