Hi!

I've started so many blogs...and left them because I had no thoughts, forgot about them, shy or just wasn't amused.

May someone suggest a good site for me to set up a blog?

I am not web savy and I'd like to write, insert pics and small videos. I am not sure what is popular at the moment or really good.

Thanks you for you help/suggestions before hand!

There's quite a few of us on LiveJournal , which is completely customizable (from either creating your own layout, or picking from a lot), and you can insert pictures and videos. There's a basic version, and a pay version, which allows you more pictures and icons.

Maybe it should be mentioned that the Basic account on Livejournal now has advertising - you can't see it when you're logged in, but anyone who isn't logged in will see it when they look at your entries.

Don't get me wrong, I like livejournal a lot - bought a Permanent account three or four years ago and don't regret it. But it's something to consider in reaching a decision.

One alternative you might want to consider is Insanejournal, which doesn't have adverts on the blog pages with its free accounts - but they are on the page that you use to type entries etc. The management are allegedly more friendly to fanfic than livejournal, but it has a much smaller user base than LiveJournal and the user interface is a lot more primitive.

I third the cheers for LJ, and also want to add that in contrast to some other blog sites, LJ is basically a social network of sorts - you can add friends and read their blogs, and friends who add you read yours, so it's very different to writing entries into cyberspace and seldom seeing a reaction or knowing who's reading.

There are also communities you can join, themed forums of sorts. And there are a lot of them. If you can think of a reason for people to unite, there is an LJ community for them. <g> If you are shy, as you say, joining communities is a good way to overcome that.

Julie

I use wordpress. I like it because of it's security features. The free account is simple, but easy to use. As far as I know, it has no ads.
However it does restrict where you can link videos from... which is fine by me because as I said, I use it due to it's security features..

Good luck with where ever you decide to set up.

In response to Marcus, I've never personally experienced any difficulty from LiveJournal in relation to fanfic. Yes, I've seen some discussion about alleged hostility, but it mainly seems to relate to material - written and visual - including under-age sex, incest and other generally-held taboos - and I believe that it's due to fear of legal retribution.

LiveJournal a year or so ago started requiring users to flag journal content as suitable for all ages, containing some mature content, and as not suitable for minors. We're also required to state a date of birth when registering. If you're over 18 (or, for some mature material, over 14) and you're signed in, you see no flagging at all. Having 'grown up' in fanfic with our system of ratings here, where there's restricted access to nfic, I personally have no problem with LiveJournal taking steps to cover their own liability with regard to minors and adult material.

Overall, I find LiveJournal easy to use and it suits my purposes, though I did find it hard to navigate at first. Posting isn't as simple as posting to these boards, so if you do open an account there get someone to help you until you feel comfortable about posting more than just simple text.

Wendy

I agree, most of the anti-fanfic stuff was aimed at the more extreme R-rated end of things - but there have been a lot of people flagged as posting unacceptable content for posting something that is entirely legal in their own country, but borderline illegal in the USA if given the worst possible interpretation, e.g, stories about the adult lives of fictional child characters. There have also been problems with e.g. the rape victim's group who were not allowed to mention it in their interests, and other examples of excessive zeal in the people who enforce these rules.

Thank you everyone for your help!