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Bloggers who are serious about blogging have a number of important decisions to make before they plop down a large chunk of change on a hosting package. Do I opt for site hosting, the oft-cheaper reseller hosting or perhaps even free hosting? Do I pay, in time or money, for a custom theme, or do I choose a theme under the commons license and tailor it to my needs? Perhaps the most important question of all is do I choose WordPress or Blogger?

In order to answer that question, let us first start with some of the things that both WordPress and Blogger do well. Both offer free blog hosting; you can even attach your own domain to it, or they will provide you a free subdomain such as *.blogspot.com or *.wordpress.com, where the asterisk is the unique identifier you’ve chosen and they’ve approved. If you decide to upgrade at any point, you can seamlessly transition your currently free blog account.

It is at this point that the two services begin to diverge. Google’s goal with Blogger has always been to remain focused on blogging. WordPress, on the other hand, has blossomed into a full-featured content management system (CMS). The WordPress developers have worked diligently to keep these various components distinct. Nevertheless, WordPress has been unable to keep the focus on blogging the way that Google has been able to do with Blogger.

So how big a deal is focus anyway? Well, it depends. The nice thing about Blogger is that it’s super accessible and streamlined. Google tries to limit features to just those that are necessary, and even the widgets themselves offer only enough options to get the job done the way most people would want them done. So Blogger is a great choice if you want a straightforward blogging experience, but it’s not so basic that it ever feels inferior to WordPress.

In contrast, WordPress is everything plus the kitchen sink. If you can think it, then chances are somebody has already created the widget for it. The WordPress community is so large and so active that you usually have a dozen or more widgets to choose from for any given task. Since WordPress is also a CMS, if your blog ever outgrows its humble origins, it is easy to transition it into a blog plus or even a dynamic website of which your blog is only a part.

It is important to note that WordPress is not nearly as dynamic when taking advantage of the free webhosting at wordpress.com. For instance, they offer you 100+ themes to choose from, but they do not allow template editing. Blogger on the other hand provides a sophisticated template editor free, and there are no limitations on templates at all. You can use a BlogSpot template, or a third-party template, and you can edit in any manner that you see fit.

Blogger also allows you to use third-party scripts, including but not limited to tracking scripts. WordPress does not allow any kind of script. It does, however, have some advantages over Blogger. It gives you three gigabytes of storage as opposed to one, and it allows you to create as many static pages as you like; Blogger limits you to ten. WordPress is also much more convenient if you are importing from anything other than another Blogger blog. So which one to choose? Very difficult to say as they both have their own advantages. It’s often a matter of personal preference.

Some experts are predicting that tablets will replace netbooks and laptops.  I already replaced my laptop with a netbook and, although I’m tempted to purchase a Xoom or the soon to be released Toshiba tablet, I think I’ll stick with my Samsung netbook for a while longer.