So iWeb is dead? what is the next best thing for a beginner?

You're right about 3rd party commenting addons. I was questioning mikene's comment

I use iWeb hosted through 123.com It is presented exactly as intended on my iWeb screen. The blog also works correctly. Although there are rarely any comments, the option is set to on, and occasionally there is a comment, which means that I know that those work too.

Don't see how that can be possible.

Do you just have the domain name registered with 123.com and not hosting and are you in fact publishing your site to MobileMe and just forwarding your domain name to MobileMe instead?

This is the only way in which blog comments can work is if you publish to MMe and then forward your domain name.

I can assure you that if you were publishing your site directly to 123.com, then the blog comments would not work and you would be having to use a 3rd party alternative such as InteseDebate.

Hey hellbunker14,

I'm surprised no one has mentioned this, but there is a comparable application to iweb that uses the same intuitive and drag-n-drop features as iWeb. It is called RapidWeaver 5.

I, too, had wondered about the future of iWeb when I got the annoucement of MobileMe's webhosting not continuing on the iCloud, so I started looking for alternatives to design and implement a website for my teaching. I've played around with iWeb and the RapidWeaver application on my website and you can see the difference from iWeb (http://web.me.com/ryangallifant/Math_by_Mr.Gallifant/Welcome.html) and RapidWeaver (http://web.me.com/ryangallifant/Science_Nexus/sciencemain.html) isn't much different and actually gives you more customizing capabilities.

Also, in searching for a new website host, you may want to check out webhostinghub.com as they're the only one I have found to give you practically everything unlimited so you don't have to worry about putting up too many pictures or rich media files on your blog.

I hope this helps and just wanted to give you some other alternatives that I've explored looking for in a similar situation as yourself.