Week Two: February 9-13
Class Session: February 12, 12-1pm - Room 774
Class Session: February 13, 2-3pm - Room 774
A Short History o' the Blog Blogging, short for "web log", started in the late 1990s as a high tech form of web journaling. Nowadays, blogs have been integrated into so many websites that you may be reading a blog every day and not even know it. Check out Rebecca's Pocket for a full history of blogging from an early blogger's perspective.
Why would anybody blog?
First, because it is easy and second because we like to talk about ourselves.
In most cases, the early blogs were not online diaries that detailed personal exploits; they aggregated links and provided commentary to highlight interesting, fun, or ridiculous web content. Fast-forwarding to 2009, blogs have become ubiquitous throughout the web. Combined with RSS feeds, which you will learn about in Week 4, many companies and individuals began to see the power of blogs where content can be repackaged and pushed to readers. You can now find blogs on any and everything--from blogs on finding jobs in Library Science to blogs on blogging to blogs about cats or grammar or anything else you would want.
What makes a blog a blog?
I’m giving you a list of the primary elements of blogs, but keep in mind blogs are Web 2.0. They change and people find new uses for them. So, if you find an exception to the following elements -- get over it. Change and creativity happen.
- Short (and usually less than polished) entries in reverse chronological order.
- Readers have the ability to comment on a blog entry even if they don't "own" it.
- Many have RSS feed capability so that the text can be pulled into readers.
- Most blogs have some multi-media elements, such as images, videos, links. Many of these are widgets.
- Blogs can be integrated across the Web 2.0 spectrum. So, I could import my blog into Flickr.com or embed my Google Docs in my blog.
To start blogging, I suggest you try out a free blog publishing tool. The two most popular are Blogger.com and Wordpress.com. We will set up Blogger accounts, but try both on your own! If you would like to know the differences, check out these blogs:
- Blogger vs. Wordpress: 10 Features for Beginners
- Blogger vs. Wordpress.com Comparison Chart - 2009
- Blogger vs. Wordpress: Which is Better?
Creating a personal blog on blogger.com is super-easy.
- If you have a gmail account, just sign in and follow the directions.
- If you don't have a gmail account, use a personal or work email and fill in the form.
- You will be asked to give your blog a title and to create a URL.
- Choose a template.
- Start a-bloggin'. Send Lynda an email with your new blog's address (it will be something like http://(xxx).blogspot.com, where (xxx) is the unique URL you created in Step 3).
If you need more help, check out the blogger.com tutorial
Blogger is also great because you can do cool things like embedding powerpoint presentations...just like this...
I'm hooked. How do I find more blogs?
Google.com actually provides a search engine just for BLOGS! That's right, boys & girls. It's a Blog-o-Rama!
Get Shorty
This week will also look at the 'micro-blogging' tool called Twitter. Twitter is much like the status updates within Facebook. It focuses on the conversation between friends by answering the question--What are you doing? Each individual post in Twitter must be 140 characters or fewer and are called tweets.
Check out the Twitter tutorial and this New York Times Tech News article
