Intro to blogging

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Intro to blogging

• Dongmei Cao, caod_at_cofc.edu
• Science Librarian
• blog From Your Science Librarians Desk
• 10/20/06

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Let me start with some quotes

• "I think its the most beautiful tool of the
  world and it allows us the most magic thing..."
• Florence Dassylva-Simard, fifth-grade
  student
• "The process of reading online, engaging a
  community, and reflecting it online is a process
  of bringing life into learning. " -- Stephen
  Downes, Senior Researcher with the E-Learning
  Research Group

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A bit of history

• Electronic communities (pre-digital)
• AP wire (similar to a large chat room)
• Amateur (ham) radio (transmitters to comm. w/
  others
• Digital Communities
• Usenet
• e-mail lists
• BBS (Bulletin Board Systems)
• Internet forum software, e.g. WebEx (running
  conversations w/ threads/topic connections
• (Web 2.0) Virtual Communities, include. the blog
  community
• blogging, blogging, blogging
• Wikis, social tagging, social bookmarking,

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More history

• Evolution of blogging (blog community)
• Precursors
• Evolved from online diary, account of personal
  lives, these personal blogs started 1995
  diarists, journalists, journal(l)ers,
  escribitionists ? online-journal community
• Tongue-in-cheek personal website, Usenet legend
  Kibo (arguably the first blogger)
• weblog, Jorn Barger, Dec 17, 1997
• blog, Peter Merholz, weblog ? we blog, Apr./May
  1997
• Justin Hall, began 11 yrs of personal blogging
  in 1994, one of the earliest bloggers
• Blogging gained popularity, after a slow start
• e.g. Xanga, 1996, 100 Dec. 2005, 50 Million

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Definition

• I assume that most (if not all) of you already
  know
• blog n. v.
• A web page made up of frequently (if not every
  day) updated posts arranged in reverse
  chronological order
• Wikipedia definition
• OED Mar 13, 2003, included blog, n. blog, v.
  blogger, n. blogging, n. weblog, weblogging,
  weblogger
• blogger the person (a person who posts these
  entries is called a blogger)
• blogging the activity (authoring a blog,
  maintaining a blog or adding an article to an
  existing blog)
• posts the entries (individual articles on a blog
  are called "blog posts," "posts" or "entries).

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Why blog?

• News of the Monica Lewinsky scandal first broke
  on January 17, 1998 on the Drudge Report website
  today, the Drudge Report resembles a simple
  weblog (citizen journalism?)
• Blogs, one of the hottest publishing tools around
  
• Blogs Will Change Your Business" declared the
  front cover of the May 2, 2005 Business Week
• Blogs, a legitimate business and marketing tool
• Technologically savvy businesses are using blogs
  to build relationships with their customers
  (sharing information, corporate culture and
  expertise)
• Technologically savvy publishers (from the New
  York Times to freelancers) are jumping into the
  medium
• Journalists use blogs as an ideal format for
  handling breaking news, commentary or columns
  (The Los Angeles Times, for instance, maintains a
  local breaking news blog)
• Blogs represent a democratization of info
  dissemination, providing individuals with the
  opportunity to publicly present their thoughts
  and opinions
• Become a blog publisher yourself
• Join more than 50M bloggers in the blogosphere,
  just cool, huh?!

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Why Blog (in edu)?

• If youre a educator, you should know that blogs
  offer an innovative way for students to engage in
  reflective writing on classroom topics, in a
  familiar medium
• teachers use blogs to replace the standard class
  Web page
• instructors begin to link to Internet items that
  relate to their course
• blogs are used to organize in-class discussions
• some instructors are using blogs to organize
  class seminars and to provide summaries of
  readings...group blogs
• A place to share, to collaborate, to think
  outside of the box

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Why you should care?

• More than just a phenomenon
• Learning
• Teaching
• Literacy
• National Blog Day in the UK (10/17/06)

changing
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Types of blogs by content

• Personal blogs
• Political blogs
• Business blogs
• Cultural blogs
• Science blogs
• Topical blogs (niche, e.g. Google Blog, news
  about Google)
• Directory blogs
• Link blogs
• Others?

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Types of blogs by format

• MP3 blogs/musicblogs/audioblogs
• photoblogs
• Others?
• Moblogs/mobile blog posted from a mobile phone
  or PDA (special software)

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Blogging in Ed

• Blogging in higher ed
• Professors who blog
• Group blogs
• Classroom blogging
• Science blogs
• (See handout for examples and sources)

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Some basics

• A blog entry typically consists of the following
• Title - main title, or headline, of the post
• Body - main content of the post
• Comments - comments added by readers
• Permalink - the URL of the full, individual
  article
• Post Date - date and time the post was published
• A blog entry optionally includes the following
• Categories (or tags) - subjects that the entry
  discusses
• Trackback - links to other sites that refer to
  the entry
• Blogroll A blog typically contains a list of
  links of other blogs that the blogger reads or
  affiliates with.

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Blogging terms

• Blogging terminology - a list of terms
• (Wikipedia)
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_blogging_term
  s

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Blog software / blogware

• two kinds of blog software
• Developer-hosted weblog applications are
  offered only through their developers' hosts a
  hosted blog is one where all data and the
  publishing interface reside on the server of the
  blogging software company
• User-hosted/independentweblog applications are
  available for users to download and install on
  their own systems
• resources
• Wikipedia blogging software
• What to choose see my blog post for a primer to
  read
• Blog software comparison chart
• Chart comparing server-side blogware

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The Blogosphere

• Technorati (real time tracking service)
• Blog growth
• 2/6/06 27.2M blogs,
• July 2005 14.2 x106 blogs, 1.3B links
• Double every 5.5 mon
• 2/6/06 State of the Blogosphere by Dave Sifry
• A new blog created every sec,
• 75,000 created daily,
• 13.7M are still posting 3 mon after (blogging ?
  habitual activity),
• 2.7M update at least weekly,

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Blogosphere growth, Mar 03 Jan 06
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Explanation of the chart

• 60 times bigger (than it was 3 years ago)
• The state of blogosphere is strong
• As Im preparing this presentation (for
  historical perspective ?)
• Today(10/20/06) 57.4M blogs
• Last time when I presented
• 4/3/06 3pm 33.2M blogs, 2.2B links

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Blogosphere New blogs created /day Jan. 04 -
Jan. 06
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Blogosphere Daily posting volume vs. major news
events
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Blog search engines

• How to easily find the most interesting blogs on
  a subj.
• Blog Finder (Sept. 05, by Technorati),
• tags-based way to find the most authoritative
  blogs on a subj.
• in 4 month, 850K blogs, 2,500 categories
  (technology, politics, gardening )
• most comprehensive directory of blogs
• Other blog search engines
• Google Blog Search multiple blog sites, include.
  Blogger, Live Journal and others
• Bloglines create RSS subscriptions, publish
  blogroll on users own sites
• Feedster another popular one

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RSS feeds reader

• track hundreds and thousands blogs that youre
  interested and read often (or every day ?), no
  way?!
• ? Syndication, a big deal
• blog applications usually offer web syndication
  service either in the form of RSS or Atom
• Feeds reader/news reader/feed aggregator
• Web based, e.g. Bloglines
• Windows based, e.g. SharpReader, Alertbear,
• Others, see the article (Introduction to RSS),
  see J Finchs presentation on RSS feeds and
  podcasting

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Ready, lets blog (a demo)

• Why Blogger?
• free and simple
• Learning curve, minimum
• Time, 10 minutes?!
• Hosted on blogspot.com
• (no need to worry about hosting)

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Create your blog from the groud up

• Go to Blogger (www.blogger.com)
• Type in your username, password, name, and e-mail
  account.
• Fill in a title and description for your blog.
• Keep the circle by "Host at."
• Type an address for your blog.
• Click to accept terms of service, and then click
  Next.
• Select a template and click Finish.
• Type an entry. (Maybe something like, "This is my
  first blog entry.")
• Choose different formatting if you wish (to bold,
  italic, etc.).
• Hit Post and Publish.
• Wait a few seconds and then hit View Web Page.
• Thats it You just created a blog

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Be Imaginative!
Thank you!
Happy Blogging!