The definition of "web site" has changed a lot in 20 years, and McFly's suggestion of a blog the perfect example. It's that "social media" thing: A blog is really just a self-service web site in which your content is organized as posts, and it has "social media" features like "pings" and "trackbacks" that are supposed to connect your blog to a wider network of social media sites.

But a blog is just a specific example of what we call a "content management system", and good blogging software can be used to build all kinds of web sites, and the finished result doesn't have to look like a blog.

It could look like a forum. The HabitableZone is built on WordPress blogging software. I'm building university courses on WordPress, and then it looks like a "learning management system".

So go for a blog, and you'll get a web site.

wordpress.com is run by the developers of the WordPress software, and they have free starter accounts that are probably all you need. There are other blogging platforms that are probably just as good, but all else being equal, if you go with some version of WordPress, you'll be able to call on me for help with it. And if some future incarnation of the Zone provides blogs for members (hint: it will), then I'll be able to transfer your data from your blog into the Zone.

Tom's blog is at wordpress.com. You should ask him for more information about them.

A different way to go if you want to have your own domain name (bowser.com is taken, but they'll sell you an emailaddress@bowser.com for $35) is to use the self-service web site "builder" package that comes with almost all domain name registrations (probably what you remember from 20 years ago). You sign up for web site hosting for something on the order of $5/month, and the package usually includes all kinds of free software. There's the aforementioned "builder", and usually the package includes WordPress. No matter where you go, there you are.

The benefits of hosting your own web site aren't as compelling as they used to be. There are lots of alternate ways to publish content on the Net these days, and the costs range from cheap to free. It's not like the good old days of the DotCom Boom, when my answer would typically be something like "well, let's see, that'll be $10,000 to set it up, then $700/month hosting, plus bandwidth charges". There's very little gold left to be mined in that vein.