Zude accounts are free, and you must be at least 15 years old to open one. You can click on the Help link on Zude's home page, then go to the Quick Start folder and click on Creating an Account if you want to know what to expect:

An ordinary Zude account is free, but you can expect to see ads on the pages you create -- not unlike what you can expect from a free web hosting account, which is what this is when you come right down to it. If you want to have a Zude account without the ads, it costs $25 per year. When you click the link to sign up for Zude, it gives you four options: Individual, Family, Group, and Business. The Help instructions recommend going with the Individual sign up, since that's the only one that is actually available currently (the others are coming later).

The Individual membership gives you an unlimited number of customizable pages; public, private, and personal pages; a personalized Zude address; and lets you include content from the web, your own computer, and widgets and gadgets. Naturally, this is the one I chose.

The form you fill out for Zude memberships asks for your first name, last name, zip/postal code, country, screen name, birth year and gender. In the directions, Zude asks that you include your real birth year, not the birth year you tell everyone online -- a nod to how people actually behave online. It's nice to see that this company is at least that web savvy. When you give your first and last names, it automatically fills those in as your screen name, but you can change it.

The next step is to give your e-mail address and password. As is typical for these kinds of sign-ups, you have to enter your password twice, type in a security code, and tick a box saying that you agree to the site's terms.