1. Short assessment of the internet’s most valued blog publisher Project accomplished by: Topor Radu Placinschi Oana Sânziana Mihai Alexandru Ionu ţ Cazan Stelian Turt ă D ă nu ţ

2. publisher 1) Cost 2) Control 3) Flexibility & Extensibility 4) Search Engine Optimization 5) Reputation & Resell 6) A great blogging community & Gorgeous themes 7) The Bottom Line Advantages vs Disadvantages (+) (-)

3. WordPress, like basically all the other major blogging services available to the common internet user, is a free service at it’s core. You can’t beat that price. You can create an account and start as many Wordpress blogs as you want. Some people have hundreds of them and it doesn’t cost them a cent in hosting costs. However, after having created an account, you soon discover that WordPress offers for sale a variety of extensions for your account, like additional hosting space, aimed at improving your blogs. Thus, as far as performance and quality goes, you can’t help but feel that you’re about to deal with a hosting service intentionally held back, in order for WordPress to be able to sell their extensions to the basic free package. WordPress also allows you to run a a self-hosted WordPress site. In order to do that, you’ll need to buy a domain, which is usually between about $2 and $50 a year depending on the top level domain selected (.com,.net,.info,.tv, etc.) and additional features, such as private registration. Then you’ll need to buy a hosting package that usually start around $5 and go up from there depending on the features. This will give you a monthly fixed cost of at least $5 and probably more.

4. WordPress offers you a great deal of control over your blogs, giving you all the tools you need to easily manage everything from posts to comments, tags, subscriptions, navigation or CSS stylesheets, but also to keep a close eye and a firm grip on the data WordPress servers hosts for your blog. Self-hosted WordPress though is subject to the rules of the hosting company. That’s why you’ll need to find a host that fits your needs and has a good reputation for customer service. You can even use co-location where you rent or even own the server where your blog runs if you want. If you need to move to a new host, this is relatively easy to do.

5. While other blog publishing application are hard to extend and customize, WordPress is a full blown content management system (CMS) in a blogging software disguise. There are so many things you can do with it in terms of modifying the core PHP code or constructing themes and plugins that it boggles the mind. This fact is demonstrated by the vast number of modifications, extensions and plug-ins available out there for the majority of uninitiated bloggers. There are a huge number of WordPress plugins and themes available with new ones appearing every day. There are many designers and software developers who know WordPress well and who can create new ones to fit your specs.

6. Unlike some other blog publishing sites, like Google owned Blogger, WordPress tends to lack in search engine optimization capabilities. Many WordPress themes are poorly optimized for SEO so you will need to take this into consideration. You will also have the challenge of getting Google to recognize your new domain. While rapid indexing techniques can help you’ll sometimes encounter domains that Google stubbornly refuses to recognize for various reasons. Lastly, finding a keyword rich domain name for your niche blog can be difficult. You may have to buy one from a domain broker or auction which can be pricey.

7. WordPress is considered the premier blogging platform in the world today. Many people tend to see the majority of blogs hosted on simple interfaced sites like Blogger, as spammy, whereas, while they can be used for ill purposes or have exceptionally ugly themes, WordPress blogs generally have a much better reputation in the web marketplace. While selling a blog hosted exclusively under the publisher’s domain is usually against the terms of service, resells do go on under the table from time to time, but the price is generally much lower than a comparable separate domain, whereas a well established WordPress blog on it’s own domain can sell for thousands of dollars.

8. WordPress.com is a community and conversations continue from one blog post to another and through the comments. Our tag surfer feature makes it easy for you to find like minded bloggers interested in the same topics as you and connect with them. You can change the look of your blog with over 60 attractive themes ranging from professional to fun to crazy, and you can switch themes instantly with just a click of a button. Each theme allows you to customize your sidebar using widgets, and several themes let you upload your own photo or image for the header bar. We add themes regularly based on user requests

9. Concluding, if you’re wanting something more long term, particularly if you want to setup domains for resell, develop a presence beyond simple search engine marketing, establish a local niche blog or have a greater degree of control then a self-hosted WordPress install is what you want.

10. http://optempo.com/2008/01/22/niche-blog-hosting-wordpress- vs-blogger/ http://en.wordpress.com/features/