From Wikipedia:
A blog is a website in which journal entries are posted on a regular basis and displayed in reverse chronological order.
Basically, a blog is your opportunity to talk to the world. In the past, you had to get on television or publish a book to have much of a voice (other than the opinion page of the newspaper), but that’s all changing. The Internet started this democratization of the media and the blogging revolution has extended it even further. All you need is an Internet connection and something to say.
As you can see from the Wikipedia entry above, a blog contains regular “journal entries.” These do not — let me repeat, not — have to be what you might consider “journal” entries. Sure, plenty of people write about their private lives, because they feel comfortable doing so, but you don’t have to do it. I only write in my blogs what I’d feel comfortable having the whole world read; my private journal is for more personal matters.
What’s so great about blogs? From a reader’s perspective, you get to read real stuff from real people. No longer are we dependent upon the media; we are the media. Yes, this does mean that blog writing is more raw and unedited, but that’s okay. There are plenty of people doing interesting things out there and writing about it, and it’s available for all. For free! Of course you’ll have to use your own judgment to assess what’s good and what’s not, but that’s the way it’s always been.
Switching to the blog writer’s point of view, writing a blog gives you an outlet for expression with a real audience. You can write about the things that interest you. Beyond that, there are other people throughout the world with the same interests as you, and blogging allows you to connect with them.
Feeds
We’ve already covered the first bit of lingo: blogs and posts. Now, you may have seen the word “RSS” floating around, or perhaps “feed” or something similar. When you start reading blogs regularly, it can become a hassle to go to each blog’s website individually and see if there are new posts or not. RSS (”Real Simple Syndication”) solves that problem. Similar to a magazine subscription, RSS will deliver the latest blog posts to your virtual doorstep.
So how do you do that? You’ll need what’s called an aggregator. There are plenty online; I’d recommend starting out with Bloglines.com, which is nice because you can access it from any computer. Usually you can just copy and paste the blog’s URL into Bloglines (click on Add first, once you’re in Bloglines) and it’ll automatically find the RSS feed for you. If not, you’ll have to look around on the website for a feed icon or “Entries (RSS)” or “Subscribe to this feed” or “Atom” or something similar, then copy that URL and paste it into Bloglines.
Beyond text
Blogging isn’t only about writing, mind you. You can record audio files and attach them to blog entries, which is called podcasting. And you can even record video files and attach them, too: video blogging (or vlogging or video podcasting). It’s a great time to be on the Internet.
How do I get started?
You can sign up for a free account on Blogger.com, which is how I started out. (You can also try WordPress.com and see if you like it better.) Blogger will give you an automatic Atom feed, but I’d recommend signing up for a free Feedburner account as well. If you’re interested in podcasting or videoblogging, see Podcast 411 or FreeVlog. Once you’ve been blogging for a while, you may want to switch to a more powerful engine like Wordpress, Typepad, or Movable Type. And do consider using a Creative Commons license for your blog (see their site for more details on what it is).
Last but not least, if you do start your own blog, please tell me about it. (My e-mail address is in the sidebar on the right.)
