Blogger was an easy choice for me for many reasons.
Probably the biggest reason was that its where I started - so I'm returning to my blogging roots - "Back To The Spirit Of Blogging"
I can use Blogger with my existing Google account - its just there to pick up and use as part of the Google suite of tools. Blogger is quite nice in not being as tightly integrated as Google Apps proper - like Youtube, Blogger still has a bit of its own identity.
Blogger is very easy to use for people like me who want to just get on and use a tool and not spend too much time fiddling around with the tool itself. Basically you can start up Blogger, choose a template and get writing. Blogger is a tool that you can fiddle with if you want - there are a lot of settings you can select and customise and for those who want to you can edit the HTML. Its probably the case though that if you want to get technical then other platforms would be better.
Blogger has good metrics about use - this wasn't the case in the early days and was one of the reasons I moved to Wordpress a long time ago as Wordpress had much better statistics on blog reads. Being with Google though Blogger eventually came to have very good metrics about blog reads - Blogger metrics are also a lot easier to understand than Wordpress metrics.
Blogger is ad free but if you want to you can display ads using Google Adsense and share in the proceeds of displaying ads as well as select the nature and layout of the ads that will display.
Blogger is an independent platform and easy to refer to from social networks and communities. Blogger also has its own community but this isn't something I've explored yet.
Here are some thought about the other blogging platforms I thought about.
Wordpress
Wordpress is fine but I don't find it as easy to use as Blogger although I have to admit that since setting up the template I used a long time ago I haven't fiddled around with it for fear of messing the blog up ... this reflects how I find Wordpress harder than Blogger - I find it easier to experiment with Blogger. Wordpress was a fine platform at the beginning but has more recently started to display what I think are crude ads with your blog - I can understand that they have to monetise the platform to provide it free but the way this is done just doesn't feel right to me.
Tumblr
I started with Tumblr in its very early days and managed to get the account Timelord - I hadn't used Tumblr for many years so eventually gave it away to a medical student Kat Jury in December 2013. Tumblr was an early and very interesting platform for mashing up all sorts of media - text, images, video - it suits my unstructured, anarchic eclectic ways. I had thought about starting Tumblr again but in the end .... I just wanted to write.
Medium
Medium is a blog-publishing platform founded by Twitter co-founder Evan Williams in August 2012. Medium is the most interesting of all the options I considered - its very, very interesting. Its super easy to setup and use - you can get blogging in just a few minutes - create an account with sign in with Twitter, Facebook, G+ or with an email address, select a few topics and bloggers to follow and then start writing WOW. However you sign into Medium - there is no need for a password - sign in using your Twitter, Facebook or G+ account or if using an email address to sign in then Medium sends you a link - its very cool. Medium is a community but its easy to refer to your posts on other media. To test out Medium - I set up an account and posted this paragraph while writing this post. Here is my Medium https://medium.com/@Martin.King
Medium gives a clean blog appearance but it doesn't have the customisations of Blogger but if you just want to tell a story, write and to write in a community as well then I think medium is super interesting - I will be experimenting with it but using Blogger for now at least as my "Naked Blog"
G+, Facebook and Linkedin
I've grouped all these together as they are similar - they are primarily communities (social networks) - while I post links and write short items in all of these they all have their own identity and if you refer to a post you have made on these then their identity is plastered all over your post.
So .... there it is - I chose blogger because it is easy, independent and customisable ... I will though be experimenting with Medium.
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