What's a Blog and Why Blogging?

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This is a new thread devoted to blogs, which is short for "weblogs". "Bloggers" is a term used for those who enjoy surfing through the linked blogs and those who create and maintain them. They are similar to website, but are rather streamlined and stripped-down to load fast and to suit a more narrow topic or mission than a full website. To ask questions, this is the place. To share links to worthwhile blogs, this is the place. Bloggers welcome to share tips for successful experiences. I've got about 6 blogs now, using 4 different free sites. Each does something different, and only 2 of them are "public". For a bit of weblog history, try these links:

Quote:

blog
Definition
A frequent, chronological publication of personal thoughts and Web links.
Information
A blog is often a mixture of what is happening in a person's life and what is happening on the Web, a kind of hybrid diary/guide site, although there are as many unique types of blogs as there are people.

People maintained blogs long before the term was coined, but the trend gained momentum with the introduction of automated published systems, most notably Blogger at blogger.com. Thousands of people use services such as Blogger to simplify and accelerate the publishing process.

Blogs are alternatively called web logs or weblogs. However, "blog" seems less likely to cause confusion, as "web log" can also mean a server's log files.

Definition of "blog"

Here is a quote from Dave Winer, one of the original bloggers:

The history of weblogs
Sun, Sep 9, 2001; by Dave Winer.

Quote:

Weblogs are often-updated sites that point to articles elsewhere on the web, often with comments, and to on-site articles. A weblog is kind of a continual tour, with a human guide who you get to know. There are many guides to choose from, each develops an audience, and there's also comraderie and politics between the people who run weblogs, they point to each other, in all kinds of structures, graphs, loops, etc.

Today, there are hundreds of thousands of weblog sites, and the market for tools for managing such sites is growing quickly. My company, UserLand, makes two products for weblogs, Manila, which is a centralized server-based content management system; and Radio UserLand which provides easy and powerful weblogging from the desktop.

My name is Dave Winer and I run the Scripting News weblog, which was one of the earliest and is currently the longest-running weblog on the Internet.

History of Weblogs, by Dave Winer

Stop in *here* and we'll talk amongst ourselves, LOL!

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hi cobalt!

bookmarking

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Me2

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Where shall we start? I can pick a few topics that are narrow in focus re blogging, or anyone can ask a question about blogs here. This is also a good place for shared links to favorite blogs.

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Hey there!

Are most of the sites where you can start your own blog free?

How technical is setting up your own blog - i.e. is it like setting up your own webpage on your home computer, or is it as simple as registering at the site and starting to type?

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And if I wanted to go to a site right now and start a blog, what are three or four of the best, and what do you mean by best?

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I think that this is one of the best, while most of you may disagree with the substance, the form is indisputably good.
http://www.andrewsullivan.com/

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Good question! I'd say the vast majority of blogs are hosted on free sites. As bloggers get more interested and adept, they may like to move their blog to a paid host for the features that allow more flexibility for linking between blogs and websites, and for updates to websites from hightlights of blog posts. Moveable Type is a "big name" as a respectable paid host. Userland / Radio is another. I just use the free sites and have been happy with them all. The sites I use all have a WYSIWIG text editor for you to use: what you see is what you get.

Like the features in this a2k site, you will often just type as usual in the posting box supplied. Then if you want to add a URL for an active link, bold or italicize some text or do a few other things, you will be set to "send" baddaboombaddabing!

I mess about with the "templates" that the free sites often provide for your use. A template will come with the whole html coding done for you, to insert into your own template and save, then "publish" to your blog. All the blogs I have now started with a standard template in a style I liked. Then, I have learned enough html coding to be able to move things around, change font sizes, change section colors, insert images, etc. I try not to do too much fancy in the graphics in my blogs - speed and efficiency is the 'thing' to go for.

A website is far harder to get going. If you ever looked into getting a Geocities website thru yahoo.com, you wil be using a wysiwig text editor. But it is a little harder to manipulate. You do get some great features and special effects there. Again, a website is more involved in flash animations, animated gifs, tables, photographs, forums, albums, etc. I am seeing more and more website managers come up with a blog just to coordinate the mail received and chat more personally with favorite readers. Conversations, dialogues, essays, quick links - these interactions are more suited to blogs than to websites.

Three free blog sites:
Blogger

(If you use blogger, that is the software that runs your blog. The host site is http://www.blogspot.com/)

WebCrimson

My fav is antville but it may not be accepting new blogs at present until they add another server.

If you surf the blogs listed in Weblogs you will happen upon many, many free hosts. Some you must use FTP or php or RSS feeds or other particular coding. But I like the basic ones I listed above. If I can figure them out, anyone can! Actually, the help sections, tutorials, and forums for each host will prompt you all the way through your creation.

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Nice example Maxdadeo! This is a blog using blogger, one of the most accessible blog software programs. I have 4 blogs there. I almost forgot - lessee, 4 + 1 + 1, yep, 6 total blogs have I.

Here is a blog I just started there in blogger, with the blogspot host:

Hotel Dotell

It's in the baby stage - one nice thing about a blog is that you can port it around with you if you want to move it to another host. Also, you can easily take your own blog, and within your own software and host you can change it all to a new template as you wish. You can also just "tweak" some of the template coding: for example in my blog, I picked a standard template with yellow and orange backgrounds. I tweaked it to get one large text area to be a pleasing soft medium green, changed the text size to a larger one, in an offwhite, and then changed the size of the title block and the description of the site, below.

When I get time, I will add a hit counter, and a comments feature like several of my other sites use. If I get it where I want it to be, I will likely add a forum link to this blog for postings by others in the hospitality business.

My steps to start it:
1. Register with Blogspot: http://www.blogspot.com/
2. When you register, decide if it is to be a public blog or private - for beginners, make it private. You can always go public later.
3. When you register, have the name you have picked out, ready to input, and some short description about the purpose. There are templates ready-to-use you may select with prompts there or look at the ones with blogger.
4. You will now have your free account and can go to Blogger to do the development:

http://www.blogger.com/

Blogger will 'know' you have a blog account at blogspot and you will be easily united to go to work creating content and style.

Let me know what questions you have, as you go. It may help others. I created my Hotel Dotell blog in about 20 minutes flat, using a template and doing the few tweaks.

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heck for a few bucks I can get you started with your own blog setup like a2k

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husker: you bring up an interesting point! I belong to three other posting forums/websites that use the very same templates as does a2k! The features of this particular forum are customized to targeted needs identified from long and instructive experiences with abuzz.com. The other sites I mention as very similar even use the same color scheme and private message system, as well as the division and tracking of specific forum topics and threads. BUT none of these are "blogs".

For a relatively small amount of money, any website can be set up to allow a feature such as this type of posting forum. But, there are also free hosts for websites, and now there are even free hosts for forums that may be linked into your free forum! I pay about $6.50 a month for a website with photo gallery, 3 email addresses, a posting forum, a photo gallery, and substantial FTP capabilities and huge transfers of files allowed, and no limit on website access to and from my visitors/members/guests. I link two of my blogs into this website, for easy access to a specialized feature that is not entirely appropos the website mission.

Blogs are very very streamlined sites that may be used for news feeds, like RSS, or receive headline news from many services. The beauty of the blogs are the access to instant communication coming in and out, for there are few, if any, "bells and whistles" that eat up bandwidth. Instead of long posts, the exerpts tend to be in a few short paragraphs that contain the links to more informatin. The "recommendations" by link to other blogs with similar focus is also a huge benefit to blog readers. There are sometimes "comment" features added to each blog entry. Some are made public and some are not. Many blogs provide links to full websites that are related or the "parent" organization.

Lockergnome is one example of a technical support newsletter for computer geeks and web designers. There are now at least 6 separate Lockergnome newsletters you may suscribe to, free of charge. The home website of all the newsletters also provides downloads and multiple member forums. Here's the interesting thing - each of the newsletter producers have their own blogs, and there is one main blog for Lockergnome itself, just for the reasons sited above. I read all the newsletters in my email, read the main blog online, and only occasionally check into the website. The forums that used are free hosts for them! Several of the blogs are with free hosts!

It really gets interesting to see how there are very specialized needs being met by each Internet provider and host. For one thing, blogs are very "free-wheeling" and authors may actually write more how they "talk" and bring far more personal opinion into the blogs than they would ever do in a more public website. The blogs are very personal, but the newsletters are far less personal, and the website is least personal. Blogs tend to cater to the most personal of message, style, and content.

Here is a quoted post from Blogger, one of the largest blog services:

Quote:

Blogging: Genius Strategies for Instant Web Content by long-time blogger, Biz Stone, is a highly reviewed (average, five stars) handbook for getting the most out of your blog. It covers many great tricks and tips for using Blogger. We recommend it

The link goes to Amazon (duh!) and as usual, Amazon does a great job of listing other books of interest to those who look at this page:

Quote:

We Blog: Publishing Online with Weblogs by Paul Bausch (Author), et al (Paperback)
Essential Blogging by Shelley Powers (Editor), et al (Paperback) Blog On: Building Online Communities with Web Logs by Todd Stauffer (Paperback)
Small Pieces Loosely Joined: A Unified Theory of the Web by David Weinberger (Paperback)
Running Weblogs with Slash by Chromatic, et al (Paperback)

To see all the links and learn a bit more, go to the Amazon page where the above links were recommended:
Blogging: Genius Strategies for Instant Web Content (Biz Stone)

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These links for instructional sites about blogs are from WannaLearn.com

Quote:

Free Instructional Sites:

A List Apart: How to Write a Better Weblog - an instructional article for people trying to improve the general appeal of their weblogs, touching on such topics as professional writing style, web log rules, offering new material, amusing your readers and more

Blogging as a Form of Journalism - an instructional article exploring the notion of the web log phenomenon serving as an alternative journalistic voice

Blogs - Introduction - a text-based introductory guide to weblogs, covering what blogs are, their influence on society, the motivation of bloggers, blogging history and more

Web Logs - Blogs - an instructional article on the basics of blogs and "blogging", covering the history of web logs, what a web log or blog is, different types of blogs, what blogs are used for and more

The URL of the webpage with these listings and active links is:

WannaLearn.com - Computers and Internet

In particular, I highly recommend those interested to bookmark the site of the article "Blogging as a Form of Journalism" - the two part review of this topic is very well-written and clear. The links attached to this article alone are worth a trip! Since I've been up, down and all around the blog world for about a year now, these links are some of the best around.

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One more thought for the night: if I am teaching at the junior high level at some point in the future, I would seriously consider offering students in my classes extra credit for creating and editing a blog in the subject area. The rewards are tremendous and the feedback is fairly immediate.

Here is an excerpt from the J.D. Lasica article, "Blogging as a Form of Journalism"

Quote:

Back around 1993, in the Web's neolithic days, starry-eyed Net denizens waxed poetic about a million Web sites blooming and supplanting the mainstream media as a source of news, information and insight.

Then reality set in and those individual voices became lost in the ether as a million businesses lumbered onto the cyberspace stage, newspapers clumsily grasped at viable online business models, and a handful of giant corporations made the Web safe for snoozing.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the Web's irrelevance: the blogging phenomenon, a grassroots movement that may sow the seeds for new forms of journalism, public discourse, interactivity and online community.

While no one is really sure where this is all heading, my hunch is that blogging represents Ground Zero of the personal Webcasting revolution. Weblogging will drive a powerful new form of amateur journalism as millions of Net users — young people especially — take on the role of columnist, reporter, analyst and publisher while fashioning their own personal broadcasting networks. It won't happen overnight, and we're now seeing only version 1.0, but just wait a few years when broadband and multimedia arrive in a big way.

For the uninitiated, a blog consists of a running commentary with pointers to other sites. Some, like Librarian.net, Jim Romenesko's Media News or Steve Outing's E-Media Tidbits, cover entire industries by providing quick bursts of news with links to full stories. But most blogs are simply rolling personal journals — ongoing links-laden riffs on a favorite subject.

USC Annenburg Online Journalism Review
Weblogs offer a vital, creative outlet for alternative voices

J.D. Lasica, OJR Senior Editor
posted: 2001-05-24 • modified: 2002-04-29

This is the first of a two-part series. Part two, Weblogs: A New Source of News, appeared May 31.

See also the side frame with "News briefs from around the world give you the latest developments that affect online journalism." from onlinejournalism.com

Sadly, as war looms near, blogs may be one of the fastest ways to get new and "alternative news" stories from very independent reporters. Blogs are so fast, they will have new links to global information resources far faster than popular news websites like CNN, msnbc.com, and even Google News. One great thing is there is little ability to censor or shut them down, for they move information so quickly. One still must choose what sources one reads and has personal responsibility for the critical thinking about such posts.

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Cobalt here will be infrequently posting for about a month. Stay in touch online with a2k and abuzz for "odyssey" updates, lol! I am still hoping more a2kers will be interested in sharing their info on blogging and answer questions for newbies to blogs. Blogs will be THE way to find out "what is going on" as the "War of Terrorism" (oops, I must have meant 'ON', right?). Those who do not trust that their local newspaper or online "news sites" will be telling what you want to know - or if you are tired of "spin", look to the political and news blogs.

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I thought you were on the road?

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Thanks husker for the 'shout'. I leave Tuesday at noon, Arizona time. I hope to see danon5 on Wednesday and then on to Dallas. Hope you got my PM. I will be able to get online about every two days. My last post to all emails and sites will be about 10 am Tuesday. Then, I PULL THE PLUG, lol!

Peace, love, and hugs,
cobalt

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I never got a PM - have a safe trip.

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cobalt wrote:

Cobalt here will be infrequently posting for about a month. Stay in touch online with a2k and abuzz for "odyssey" updates, lol! I am still hoping more a2kers will be interested in sharing their info on blogging and answer questions for newbies to blogs. Blogs will be THE way to find out "what is going on" as the "War of Terrorism" (oops, I must have meant 'ON', right?). Those who do not trust that their local newspaper or online "news sites" will be telling what you want to know - or if you are tired of "spin", look to the political and news blogs.

Pitter, I am *here* now. The quote above is from the February 10 post I made about the importance of bloggers in the "War" to come. Odd to read back just a few months and see that so much we discussed then is now true. More and more folks are seeing and hearing references to blogs as the fastest way to get information and a personal take on what is happening with the war. There are a number of mainstream news sources that now have blogs as well as the regular websites. The Guardian in UK is one of them. There is a CNN reporter who had been doing a personal blog "on the side" as well as his CNN official reporting. Until, that is, CNN requested he stop.

The story of Salam Pax, a blogger from Bagdhad has also been big news for a while. Now he is 'silent' but we hope he is safe and not 'found' by Sadaam's men.

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Pitter: the comment feature I use with blogspot is:

Enetation.com

The counter I use is from bravepages.com

The site stats I use is from ServuStats.com

the newletter by email list I maintain is from NotifyList.com

All four are freebies and the codes are supplied by the sites when you register with them. You have to have the site up and running first, in order to add these features to your template. In blogger / blogspot, I use several templates for my blogs. All I do to vary them is change the html codes that you will see supplied for you. Usually, I just change font, color of text, background color and some spacing. This makes it seem more "homey" to me.

This may sound "greek" to some, but seriously, I learned a great deal from just looking at the template codes and trying out a few small changes here and there until I was happy.

Next post: other Pitter questions, I think....

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The other Pitter question is: (I think)

Quote:

the work of Doris Salcedo

Doris Salcedo: Making the Disappeared Visable

Recent Installations, Salcedo

Yes, I personally like her work and highly recommend the essay above and then seeing some current work.

(Pitter asked about this after I had been discussing Lynda Benglis, since I had been using an avatar at that time of one of her 'works', which was a 'blob' of foam.... and folks here were wondering what the heck it was, lol)

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What's a Blog and Why Blogging?

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