wordpress.com and the future
It’s interesting to check out the responses to both the idea of WordPress.com, the use and the way it’s been launched.
Of course if you’ve tried out incsub blogs (now closed for new blogs) or edublogs then you’d already know all about what’s offered here in terms of functionality, moreorless. No invite required 
– although I’ll be patching that into edublogs asap so you can get your colleagues along.
What’s really interesting is the concept of Tbs of space, of quality tools (blogger anyone?) of stability and of non-commercial motivations.
And of course of WPMU and how we can translate this to different kinds of communities…
I think to say that wordpress.com is ’something we already have’ is not to understand the significance of the tool and of the community behind it… blogger may well have ‘done it’ but here we have something that’s ‘doing it well’ and ‘with space’ and that, I reckon, is going to make a lot of difference!
It’s an fascinating equation:
unlimited space + unlimited bandwidth + effective digital identity & CMS tool (WP) + ubiquitous computing = ???
on 
on 
on 
on 
on
Usually I have a lot to say (I’m wordy like that), but I don’t have much this time other than to say anyone who thinks this is an ‘old idea’ hasn’t used WordPress. WordPress isn’t like other content management systems; you have so much more control.
Well, one quick remark. I can understand the motivation behind invite-only services. How do you maintain quality and defeat spam with a free service? There has to be some barrier.
However, I should note that I like anonymity. This thing you have going with edublogs is great. I can just sign up and do it. I don’t have to be approved by some snob or somehow prove my worth. After that, I’m up for pay services. Final choice, must-be-approved-by-someone services and then only if it is really worth it. I find those almost invariably fail because they do not get the critical mass.