learnandteachonline.com

If you use any sort of content management system or flexible blogging software, you don't have to junk up your site with commercial widgets and build somebody else's business. You can roll your own.

I work on a number of online and email newsletters having regular sidebar features that can be repurposed for use on other internal pages, or offered to constituent groups. Expression Engine makes it easy with its flexible templates.

Nope, EE doesn't pay me; I just love it. Decided to make my new hobby site, Sidebarstuff.com, using the free version. The only trouble is it feels too much like I'm at work when I'm building it at night. ;-)

I don't know when this happened but the pricing structure for EE has changed.

You can get the core, which includes enough for a blog, for free.

The personal version price dropped to $99.

The commercial version increased to $249.