The REAL .net blogsphere centres around blogs.msdn.com (mostly used by MS teams and individuals) and weblogs.asp.net (used by a select few). How can a developer in the field feel part of the community if they have to host their thoughts elsewhere?
Chris: I host my own site and perfectly happy with this :-)
About a place to blog, just about anywhere will do. I find that I usually read blogs in my reader, and I really don't know/care much about where it came from.
Try www.blogger.com
I wouldnt say there is a "real" .net blogsphere, many of the most popular .NET bloggers are not on one of those sites. I would recommend codebetter.com if they are accepting new members. It's not completely free I dont think, but the best things in life never are.
I would recommend GeeksWithBlogs.net. The admins are great and are constantly working to improve the community, including adding feeds that they will be manually constructing to have relevant information to certain topics.
Also, they've grown from 150 or so members to over 400 in the past few months.
If you can get him on weblogs.asp.net you can't wrong. I hasn't failed me for the last year or two. Blogger is always good too and they have hosting on BlogSpot (if you don't mind the ads). You have more control with Blogger with the template but they're both just as easy to use.
DotNetJunkies is relatively widely read, but some may feel it doesn't fit the "well maintained" qualification. CodeBetter.com would be great, but I believe having a blog there is pretty much "invite only". The only choices remaining are DevAuthority.com and GeeksWithBlogs.net Neither is as widely read as DotNetJunkies (as far as I know), but there are definitely people who subscribe to the main feeds of both sites. (Me for instance)
I was wondering the same question.. how to open a bloging account on weblogs.asp.net.. do u need to sign up or it's a invitation only thing..