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What are blogs?
By Jamie | November 29, 2007
I guess the majority of people who read Terinea Weblog, already know what blogs are? Although, I realised the other day I’ve never actually explained in my own words what blogs are.
Blogs are not a new technology
I find most people struggle to understand the concept of blogging because they are looking for a piece of new technology to be involved. Usually when explaining something new in computing it will involve a new piece of hardware or software. Blogs on the other hand, are simply a collection of web pages which are commonly referred as blog posts. The new posts appear in date order with the latest post appearing at the top of the page. You can think of them as a online journal or web log, hence the name weblog which has been shortened to blog. Posts can contain anything from text, pictures, quoted text from other website’s, links to other blogs, music, charts, tables or embedded video.
The Community
So far you might be thinking so what, they sound like a regular website? Well blogs (good ones!) are all about the community of readers that read and leave comments. For example if you disagree or wish to add something to this particular post, you can simply scroll down the page and leave a comment. As one of the authors of the blog I should acknowledge your comment and maybe even update the post if the comment adds value.
Tell me when you update
Another big different with blogs over regular website’s is something called Really Simple Syndicate Feed or RSS Feed. You might of seen the RSS Feed logo on various web sites or within your web browser. Instead of visiting a blog to check for updates, a RSS Feed will inform you when the blog has been updated. In fact you don’t actually need to visit the blog at all, using something called a RSS Reader will pull new posts down for you.
Still confused? Watch this excellent video from Common Craft.
Business and Blogging
To find out why your business might want a blog, take a look at…
- Blogs and Wikis: Growing influences and markets of the Internet
- Benefits and Weakness for Business Blogs
Some external links
- Why business blogs are important
- 6 Reasons Every Small Business Should Be Blogging… Are You Missing the Boat?
If you’re thinking about starting one for your business, check out our
Skip to the end
So in summary…
- Blogs are a web Journal or Web log
- Readers can subscribe to the blog using the RSS feed
- Latest posts appear at the top
- Old posts appear at the bottom
- Posts can be sorted by categories and date
- A two way medium
- Readers can leave comments
- Can be about anything from knitting to the stock exchange
- Blogs should be fun and informal
- Writing a blog is referred as blogging
- Can be used for personal or business
- Reading other blogs and leaving comments is as equally important to running a blog
- Should be updated more regularly than a website
- Use a desktop blog writer to make the whole process an easier one
Topics: Business, Marketing & Social Media, Uncategorized, blogging |
Article Tags>> blogs | Business
November 29th, 2007 at 11:47 am
Nice round up Jamie - but you haven’t mentioned that blogs are a form of addiction?
Hope to see you tomorrow
Joanna
November 29th, 2007 at 6:00 pm
Unfortunately I’m still in Hastings. Will be along next week.
Jamie
March 27th, 2008 at 8:50 am
Thanks Jamie, very informative! I just got into blogging myself.
keep up the good work!
John