Thursday, October 28, 2004

Getting Started Blogging for Free

Hi, kids!

For some strange reason, not all of my friends who have access to a thing called the Internet have blogs. This post is an attempt to rectify this horrible travesty.

Blog Definition

To begin, let's define what a blog is. From whatis.com, a blog is defined as:

On the Internet, a blog (short for weblog) is a personal journal that is frequently updated and intended for general public consumption.


Blog Benefits

I have some things that I publicly want to rant about from time to time. Well, blogging is great tool for such moments. It is more socially acceptable than than accosting fellow passengers on public transportation with insane diatribes about asparagus or the Red Sox. Plus, people don't have physical access to you to beat you up when they don't like your opinions.

Blogging has also improved communication between my remote friends and me. Most people have to answer some typical boilerplate type questions in a personal email. Blogs will allow you to answer them only once. It is a great way to keep friends and family up to date with what you are doing. You can tell all your loved ones about last night's bender at the cock fights in one fell swoop. That's the beauty of technology people!

Blogging can help you professionally, even if your blog is a bit off color. (i.e. Rory Blyth) Rory's blog has some great technical content, but he also writes about random personal experiences, weird dreams, world events, and whatever else. Rumor has it his blog was very instrumental getting him his new job at Microsoft.

Reading Blogs

Here are some resources for getting started reading blogs:

  • Feedster - A good search engine for RSS feeds, although the bastards haven't found me yet.
  • SharpReader - A great, free RSS aggregator.

    (Siren noises) Acronym police! I have used the acronym RSS a couple of times without defining it. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. You subscribe to an RSS feed for a blog or website that you are interested in reading. An RSS aggregator will give you automatic notifications when new content is available. This is was cooler than manually checking a friend's blog for new content only to be disappointed because your friend is being a lazy blogger. RSS also makes it monumentally easier to keep up with a large number of blogs. You could be the next Robert Scoble.


Writing Your Blog

There are any number of places to get free blogs (if you don't believe me, Google free blogs), but personally I use Blogger (until I spring for my own domain so I can put up more types of media).

But using a web form to enter information sucks. So get w.bloggar, a free tool that makes it easier to update your blog.

So get a blog, post a comment, and leave me a link. Blogging, more popular than open marriages on Friendster!

2 Comments:

At 10:39 AM, Blogger brad said...

Get them to read this on WYSIWYG blogging. http://www.rightclick.com.au/pwain/screens/richblogging.html should make it simpler to blog.

 
At 12:50 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

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