I'm recently new to blogging, and tried blogger and also WordPress. After using both I prefered WordPress, however... whilst looking at both privacy settings on each provider, none have offered a passworded blog? It's just an idea, I'm sure someone may have already suggested it, but how about a facility to create a private blog, only accessible by a password. Rather than setting up an account with WordPress to read the blog (which I hope I've understood correctly is the way to do it) and be invited by the blogger.
Only I have relatives that would be interested in viewing the blog as it's family based, and some of them would be a little confused about setting up blogging accounts etc. Surely it would be easier for them to go to the blog, then type in a password I've designated to view it.
Like I said, just an Idea.