I’ve been blogging on and off since 2003. It became an addiction.
Over the past 12+ years like many other bloggers I’ve tried out pretty much every blogging platform under the sun, both self-hosted (on my own hosting account) or on a 3rd party platform.
While Blogger, TypePad and others are still around, other blogging platforms (both free and paid) have come and gone over the years. (Remember Posterous?)
If you invest time and energy in your blog then you don’t want to end up stranded or, which is worse, constrained and shackled to a particular platform.
However, most of the blogging platforms out there, including WordPress.com, Blogger, TypePad and Tumblr, support “custom domains” ie. if you have your own domain name you can use it with their service.
Even if they officially don’t support “custom domains” there’s nothing to stop you from simply pointing your domain name to your blog.
That way if you decide to move from one platform to another people don’t need to worry about the “brand” – it’s the same as it always was – YOURS.
I’ve spoken about marketing YOUR brand in the past.
Why would you spend your time and your energy marketing somebody else’s brand name?
Whether you’re writing about your personal passion, or for your business, or both, then you should be doing so to benefit your own brand’s growth, not that of anyone else.
Get your own domain name. Get your own email.
Stop marketing someone else’s service – make every interaction with you a chance to push your brand, even subtly.
PS: Have you considered using a .news domain name for your company blog?