Not too long ago, USB hard drives were expensive and uncommon. Today, companies give them away with their logos imprinted on them. It’s a fairly typical pattern for technology—things that were geeky yesterday are commonplace today. It appears the pattern will repeat with blogs. GoDaddy, the domain registry service, has announced that it will give you a hosted blog for free when you register a domain with them.

GoDaddy lists a number of the blog’s features, including customizable templates, image and audio upload, IP banning, surveys and site statistics. There’s no word on commenting or trackbacks. But the notion that a blog could be a giveaway incentive to buy something else is a new one. The blogs do feature GoDaddy ads across the top. I wonder if they’ll charge a few to get rid of them. The press release is here.