May 26, 2007 at 8:48 am (Blog Basics, Getting Started)
Most bloggers start out as blog readers. They usually have a few blogs they like to read regularly, either by bookmarking them on a web browser and visiting daily or subscribing to an RSS feed. So, if you want to join, that’s your first step: become a blog reader. After becoming a reader, the next step is normally to start commenting on these blogs, thus becoming part of the conversation; however, technically to become a full-member of the blogosphere, you need to blog. It sounds like a large leap from reader to casual commenter to blogger, but because of the free access to blog software and user-friendly platform most of them have, it’s really not that difficult. You’ll need to determine the answers to the following questions to get started blogging:
- What is my purpose for blogging?
- What type of blog do I want to write? Filter? K-blog? Journal? Combination?
- Who do I want to host my blog? Assuming you want free hosting, options might be WordPress.com or Blogger.com (for example).
- What do I want to blog about? Can you word this topic into phrase, tagline, or subtitle?
- What would I like the title of my blog to be? (This can affect your URL.)
- Do I want my blog to be public or limit it to a select group who will need a password to access it?
- Would I at some point want to earn some revenue from my blog?
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May 26, 2007 at 7:45 am (In the Blogosphere)
One of the best ways to learn about blogging is to read blogs, and those who are at the top of the blog rankings, considered “A” and “B” list bloggers are the masters. Many of these bloggers make a living, just by blogging. For example, there’s The Manolo, a pen-name for a blogger who writes primarily about shoes but who also covers fashion, trends, and celebrities. He has a wonderful wit about him and is rumored to make six figures from his blog shoeblogs.com. Then there is dooce.com, written by Heather Armstrong. She has the strange honor of being one of the first people to be fired due to blogging about work-related issues. In fact, the term “dooce” is now credited to her as meaning “to be fired due to blogging.” Armstrong writes about her life as a mother, the family dog, being an ex-Mormon, and other topics related to her life. She and her husband both earn enough income off her blog (and he also started one eventually) so that both stay home to blog and raise their young daughter. You can find A-list bloggers listed at http://technorati.com/pop/blogs/ , but here’s a short list of links (not including two mentioned in the above paragraph) to start exploring:
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May 26, 2007 at 5:39 am (Getting Started)
Many web hosts (Internet Service Providers aka ISPs) these days can host a blog, so if you don’t want to use a freebie blog any more, you can check first with your local ISP to see if it has this available. The thing is that you will need some place to host (as in store your web files), but you also might need some place to get the weblog software. Tyepad (http://www.typepad.com/) is one place that provides both hosting and software to run your blog. However, many regular Internet hosts do not provide the software to blog as well, so you need to buy this yourself. It’s not like using HTML, which is a language, not a software package. With HTML, anyone can create a web page using something as simple as Notepad. You just need to know the language. Blog software isn’t like this. It is software that, if you plan to run your own blog minus a network of any kind, you need to buy.
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