Credit: Harry Campbell

When I recently decided to start a blog, I had to choose a blogging platform. For two reasons, I chose WordPress. First, I could start my blog in minutes through its free hosting service, paying only if I needed extras such as additional storage space. Second, I was attracted to WordPress's open-source software. If I ever wanted to have greater control over how my blog looked and functioned, it would be easy to set up a site at a domain name of my choosing and continue using the software. I'm not the only one attracted to this no-risk proposition. More than 3.5 million blogs--with hundreds of thousands of posts daily--are hosted on Wordpress.com, which is run by the Web startup Automattic.

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