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Terapad.com's tagline, "Beyond Blogging," is fairly apropos. Many other free online apps, such as Blogger, Vox, LiveJournal, and WordPress.com, put their focus strictly on the act of blogging—other features are added only to enhance that experience. With Terapad, blogging is just one of its tools, which are aimed at helping you quickly and easily create an online presence. Depending on what you're looking for, Terapad's broader, more business-minded focus will prove either a blessing or a curse.

After a visit to the home page, however, you'd be forgiven for thinking that Terapad was primarily a blogging service. Like a traditional blog site, it lists links to blogs that have been created using the service, a searchable list of post tags, and links to image galleries. On a whole, the layout indicates a service that's attempting to build a community, something that's becoming more and more popular among free blogging services. It's nothing like the social-networking features offered by the Vox or LiveJournal sites, but it is a quick and easy way to discover how others use the platform. Under Terapad's surface is a good selection of tools that might help your very small business boost its online presence. More on these later.—next: Getting Started >

Getting Started
A small link on the home page prompts you to sign up for an account. Str