I was talking to a very dear friend of mine the other day who mentioned that one of the very first things that she learnt when she started working in the financial markets was “There’s no such thing as a free lunch”. If that is the case we really are very privileged right now when it comes to the Internet.

Having designed and built a large number of customised web sites and content management systems over the years, I am super impressed with the amount of free blog web site templates available today. In particular I’ve been a WordPress fan for quite a while, (my company’s web site uses a customised version of the platform). So for my latest blog I really wanted to check out the themed templates, build a free blog web site and comment on my results.

PLASTIC CUP uses a free two column themed WordPress template. All I had to do was log in to WordPress and click “Register another blog” (since I’m already a member). The next page asked for the web site address, along with a couple of other details and “hey presto” I had a new blog in a few seconds.

Now for someone like me, who has been in the business for a while, the thing that truly amazes me, is this. I do not have to pay for the design, the content management system, web hosting or even the domain name registration. My content (text and images) sits on a WordPress server and I have the opportunity to be a publisher with no costs attached. That is very generous of WordPress and to the team I say a gigantic “Thank You!”