My survey tells me http://www.wordpress.com comes first in rating of all the blog sites.
First of all let me tell some good things about all free blogs
1. Giving a free space in the blog is like giving water (to a stranger who is lost and stranded in the big world) and oxygen without which we cannot live.
Thanks a lot for that in spite of lot of advertising.
2. Secondly what they offer is html page with the code behind and I do not have have to have a html editor of my own.
In fact it is cloud computing.
3. Print industry (daily papers) never give this opportunity of freedom of expression (without vulgarity of course) to a stranger who has a different point of view.
They have some taboos, may be religion, may be race and many more hidden commercial agenda.
4. Like minded people get together spontaneously and one has to encounter opposition too.
5. In a world where people tend to get isolated and segregated this is a good outlet they have.
But remember only 10% use this and nearly 90% in the third world have no access or access which is very slow and poor.
6. For me this open up educational activity and apart from some satire I cannot use this type of activity in academic setup where there is some restriction, pomposity and arrogance.
7. Light humour is essential ingredient for healthy life and in countries where one party dominates and opposition view is surpassed this is the only avenue one has to dissipate inbuilt anger and frustration.
8. Email is a clumsy way to communicate but and is almost one to one and / or one to many where many is abused and junk mail is the result.
Sometime one need anonymity to express a view that is suppressed and one cannot do that with email.
9. There is spell checker, colour and standard formatting and sometime ability include images which is sufficient for word possessing.
10. It gives comment space and above all it gives statistics which is very encouraging to see how many are with the same or opposite line of thinking.
Now let me tell you things that I would like them to include
1. Blogging is possible with one having all the senses intact for communication.
Blind person cannot start a blog without some handicap.
I prefer an audio output for them, something similar to skype linked to the blog page.
2. Translation to at least the native language of the writer/s (Sinhala and Tamil).
This will prevent abuse which I have seen in religious and racial nature at a different site.
3. There should be editorial control if something of that nature happens. At least there should be random checking and reference to comments and avoid political nature of the contents.
4. What I want very much is the ability to rearrange the content into either chapters or categories.
Blogging is a random process and little thought is given at first. With comments and time it grows into some identifiable themes.
When the contents are mature they should be put into themes with some identification tags or designs.
5. They should introduce cross-reference capability with links to private (one’s own publications within the site and outside the site) and public (external links) publications with similar categories or items.
6. Then the blog site should thinks if it is bringing more interactivity to the site and should make print form available for reading (the less unfortunate who does not have access to Internet) at leisure.
In other word web form should transform into print form including braille and books for light reading.
In other word make it available universally until everybody who is somebody has an Android and Internet connection or Kindle.
More than ninety percent (90%)of the readers read mediocre news papers because of this lack of internet facility.
7. I will add to this when new ideas are perceived.
asokaplus 