Like Wikis, blogs are synonymous with Web 2.0. Blogs provide powerful, inexpensive ways to publish on the web. Today, many websites you see are actually blogs. Blogs are very functional as they can not only handle text, but images, video and audio. Many people can contribute or only one or two. They are very democratic, easy to set up and maintain and can reach both wide audiences and also very specific, limited audiences geared towards as very specific niche.

SOFTWARE
With the exception of WordPress, this blogging software is easy to get up and running. It all is configured within a web browser interface and is usually hosted on the blogging software's servers unless otherwise stated. Except for WordPress and Blogger, all the blog software listed below is sold by SixApart.

TypePad - Popular blogging tool. It requires a monthly fee but offers several levels of sophistication and is very easy to implement. If you blog regularly this is a good option.
LiveJournal - Another popular blogging tool.
MoveableType - Pro level blogging tool that large companies and individual bloggers use. Requires monthly fee.
Vox - A relatively new blogging software that easily lets you blog with video, photos in addition to text.
WordPress - An open source free software package that must be installed and configured on the back end of a server system to be used. Very sophisticated, but requires some tech knowledge to get up and running.
Blogger - Google's popular free blogging software. It is easy to get an account, set-up and publish, literally in minutes. Limited functionality, but there are third party add-ons that make it more diverse.

BLOG EDITING/WRITING
Ecto - Cross platform blog editing tool. There are very few blogging authoring tools that are as good as this one. It allows you to publish to a variety of blog sites (TypePad, Blogger etc), so you can write once and publish in many places. It integrates with browsers so you can select sections of webpages and insert them into blog entries. Allows for tagging of blogs with keywords and many other features. It is almost indispensable if you are writing blogs consistently. (Mac and PC)

MarsEdit - Good blog authoring tool. (Mac only)

FINDING BLOGS
The de facto standard for finding blogs is Technorati. This clearing house website of blogs is a terrific resource. It tracks thousands and thousands of blogs. Its a good place to start to find blogs.