WordPress.com: 3Gb free Now
 

WordPress.com has announced that storage for free accounts has increased from 50Mb of storage to 3Gb of storage space.

They have done this to support the development of multimedia blogs, but what I find interesting is that they use Gmail as an example of how a large repository can change the way people use the network.

Hmmm, as far as I'm aware the storage space was already 2 or 3 GB with Automattic (who run wordpress.com) ; I've been using them for years and Always been very satisfied. I've mainly posted text-only articles so the storage is something I never paid too much attention to.

The Gmail reference doesn't surprise me. Before Gmail, mailbox storage of 2 MB (Hotmail) to 6 MB (Yahoo) was the norm. It was Gmail who changed that completely and thereby motivated/forced other providers to switch to larger storage too.

Indeed, when I started with wordpress.com in 2006 it was allready 2 or 3 GB storage

Which is still not a lot, but so far I'm pleased because most articles I post are text-only. Also, if you host your images elsewhere you can embed them, making it appear as if they're in your article on your Wordpress blog without using actual storage space within your Wordpress.com account.

I do think there's hosts who offer Wordpress blogs pre-configured with the same features and more storage, but probably none of those are free. Plus, Automattic has such a quality helpdesk that it's hard to find better options ; especially for a free service, their support team is great!