I looked into using VOX, and although I am not currently planning to use VOX for my personal blog, I am continuing to look for an alternative. Ideally, I would like tagging support and the ability to customize it somewhat to add links to external web2.0 sites but I want a cohesive and organized site (i refuse to become a member of the waste that is myspace).
I could always host my own personal blog and use an open source CMS, however i was hoping to include my personal blog as part of a community, instead of isolating it to myself.
but on the other side, by joining my personal blog to a community of bloggers on an existing site, i do not want to feel that my posts are no longer mine. By that i mean, if i decide to move elsewhere, i want to be able to export my posts in a standard xml format that i can take with me. i don't want to feel locked into a particular server forever, much like i do with my blogger account now, that just makes me hesitant to keep toiling away to add content.
