Blogger.com Help is up. I tell you, since its’ acquisition by Google, the service is better, faster, and more reliable.
I set up a demo blog for a colleague a few weeks ago, and with Blogger it was trivially easy. I was pleasantly surprised by how well it worked, and how quickly they could get in and participate in the blog, without any previous knowledge.
That said, TypePad seems like the service-to-beat. But then, they don’t have free accounts anyway. If you have no money for your blog, Blogger.com is still the way to go.
When I started my San Diego Blog I considered waiting for something better, or doing the Movable Type thing, but, feh, it still bugs me how it’s the default answer for setting up a complex blog. Here’s where I again wonder why there isn’t anything as slick as MT which is open source. Blog software is not hard to write, but making it as intuitive as possible, easy to learn, is an interaction design and UI challenge. And I suppose open source stuff still stinks at that.