The New Internet Sport Shane Nackerud Saturday Scholars September 17, 2005

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The New Internet SportShane NackerudSaturday
ScholarsSeptember 17, 2005
BLOGS
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The Agenda

• What is a blog?
• Examples of blogs
• Finding blogs
• RSS and subscribing to blogs
• How to start blogging
• Blogger demonstration

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What is a Blog?

• A web page made up of usually short, frequently
  updated posts that are arranged chronologically
• Content and purposes of Blogs varies greatly
• links and commentary about other web sites
• news about a company/person/idea
• diaries, photos, poetry, mini-essays, project
  updates, even fiction
• At the U there are class blogs, blogging
  assignments
• Stay in touch with family and friends
• Instant messages to the web
• More than anything, blogs are an easy way to
  create web pages

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Anatomy of a Blog
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Todays Blog Landscape

• According to Technorati.com, there are over 14.2
  million blogs
• The blogosphere doubles in size every six
  months
• One new blog is created every second
• Over 80,000 blogs are created every day
• 45 of blogs are abandoned after three months
• 13 of bloggers post at least once per week

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Examples of Blogs

• Political Blogs
• InstaPundit http//instapundit.com/
• Powerline http//www.powerlineblog.com/
• Daily Kos -- http//dailykos.com/
• Blog for America http//blog.deanforamerica.com/
  
• Humor Blogs
• Dave Barry - http//blogs.herald.com/dave_barrys_b
  log/
• Scrappleface - http//www.scrappleface.com/
• Sports and Entertainment Blogs
• Bat Girl http//www.bat-girl.com/
• Aarons Baseball Blog - http//aarongleeman.com/
• TwinsGeek http//www.twinsgeek.com/

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More Examples

• Technology blogs
• Slashdot - http//slashdot.org/
• Gizmodo http//www.gizmodo.com/
• Educational blogs
• UThink - http//blog.lib.umn.edu/
• Lawrence Lessig http//www.lessig.org/blog/
• PZ Myers - http//pharyngula.org/
• Timely
• http//dear_raed.blogspot.com/
• Average Jo/Jane blogs
• The Bleat http//www.lileks.com/bleats/

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Blog Search and Aggregators

• Blog search tools
• Technorati http//www.technorati.com
• Google blog search http//blogsearch.google.com/
  
• Blogs based on popularity
• Blogdex http//blogdex.net/
• Daypop http//www.daypop.com/
• Listing blogs by subject/language/country
• Blogwise http//www.blogwise.com/
• Eaton web http//portal.eatonweb.com/
• Blogarama http//www.blogarama.com/index.php
• Minnesota blogs
• MNSpeak - http//www.mnspeak.com/mnspeak/aggregato
  r/

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RSS and Subscribing

• RSS Really Simple Syndication
• XML format feed that highlights recent entries
  on a blog
• Or on a newspaper site
• Or on any web site where information can be
  broken up into discrete chunks
• How do I subscribe to an RSS feed?
• Use a RSS reader
• Mozilla Thunderbird email client -
  http//www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/
• SharpReader desktop application-
  http//www.sharpreader.net/
• Bloglines web client http//www.bloglines.com/

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How do I start to blog?

• Hosted Services
• Blogger - http//www.blogger.com/
• DiaryLand - http//www.diaryland.com/
• LiveJournal - http//www.livejournal.com/
• TypePad - http//www.typepad.com
• UThink - http//blog.lib.umn.edu
• More
• Installed Services
• Movable Type - http//movabletype.org
• PMachine - http//www.pmachine.com
• Blosxom - http//www.blosxom.com/
• More

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Demonstrationhttp//www.blogger.com
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Questions?snackeru_at_umn.eduwww.lib.unmn.edu/san
/internetsport.ppt