I'm thinking of starting another blog for a little writing project of mine. I'd rather it have a more professional look-n-feel than the NewsBruiser blogs' built-in templates allow, and possibly an automatic audience if I can manage it easily.

So I thought about using Open Salon, which would be free and associated with an institution I'm nostalgically fond of. But every Open Salon blogger gets the same page template, including ads, and I wouldn't control my domain name, and the Terms of Service has some clauses I don't like:

By submitting or posting User Content using the Service or the Site, you grant to Salon an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license to: (1) use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute the User Content in or through any medium now known or hereafter invented, for any purpose; (2) to prepare derivative works using the User Content, or to incorporate it into other works, for any purpose; and (3) to grant and authorize sublicenses of any or all of the foregoing rights.

You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the User Content will no longer appear on the Site. However, you acknowledge that Salon may retain archived copies of your User Content, and that Salon will retain the rights to the content granted by these TOS.

So, I'm not technically giving up my rights to my words, but they get to use them as grist for any mill they ever conceive of. And I'm not sure how I'd export my work to back it up and have a local archive.

I also considered Six Apart's TypePad, which has a much more flexible template system. I'd be able to use a custom domain name. The price (about $10/month for what I want) seems reasonable. And the license (Section 10) for them to use my work is not perpetual, yay. But it's a paid service with no warranty, which raises my eyebrows. And I've seen complaints about the completeness of TypePad export.

WordPress.com has fantastic export, of course, and amazing customizability, and some built-in audience, and for a small price I could use a custom domain name. Let's check the ToS... Oh goody, mandatory arbitration in the case of a conflict (instead of getting a fair hearing in a court of law). And nothing in this contract, as far as I can tell, specifies that my words belong to me, although IP folks can tell me what assumption I should make.

At this point I'm thinking I should just coerce a web designer into making a nice NewsBruiser template for me and use a Crummy.com blog, because I know I can nag the sysadmin of that particular virtual box at will. Thoughts?