Blogging Basics

1
Blogging Basics

• Parts
• Reasons
• Tools

2
5Ws

• Who
• Those with ideas to share (bloggers)
• What
• Quick and easy publishing for data and opinions
  (blog)
  
• When
• Long history with the Internet, only recently
  gaining ground
  
• Where
• Online, web based
• Why
• Independent thought

3
Who does this?

• Those who want to share their ideas
• Must be willing to be open to strangers
• Must be willing to contribute to the rest of the
  blogsphere
  
• Those who crave a live audience
• Beyond the MDT for students (Mom/Dad, Teacher)
• Those who want to be involved

4
What are they?

• Web based web pages
• Most are created and maintained from websites
• Rely on content not flash
• Places for open expression, collaboration and
  learning
  
• Rely on links, comment and trackback

5
When did this all start?

• Blogging likely started as another technology
  that used .plan files and a UNIX command finger
  (pre 1995)
  
• WWW pages made it easier for less geeks to post
  (circa 1995)
  
• Database driven web applications now let the
  masses post quickly and easily (today)

6
Where to start?

• Free
• www.blogger.com
• www.blogs.ca
• Word Press
• Thingamablog
• Pay
• Movable Type
• Kidzlog
• needs a separate server

7
Why to do this?

• Because you have something to share quickly an on
  your own terms
  
• To build community
• To join a community
• To become involved

8
Anatomy of a blog

• Post
• The post is the content of the blog
• Every post has an associated permalink that is
  archived
  
• Link
• Connections out to other locations online (blogs,
  news, etc.)
  
• May have to be hard coded using html
• Comments
• Feedback from blog visitors

9
Anatomy of a blog cont

• Trackback
• Developed by Moveable Type to allow bloggers to
  see when others are blogging about them
  
• Ping
• Used to notify other blogs that they are being
  blogged about (trackback)
  
• Stats
• Useful for monitoring traffic and providing
  inspiration

10
Getting Started

• Go to www.blogger.com

11
Additional Tools

• Technorati
• Bloglines
• StatsCounter
• SiteMeter
• http//del.icio.us/
• Flickr

12
Definitions

• Blogsphere
• The collective network of blogs on all topics
• Links
• Connections to stories, postings or other data to
  support your posting
  
• Comments
• Feedback from visitors to a blog, helps to
  encourage the blogger and exchange ideas
  

13
Definitions

• Post
• The basic part of the blog
• Permalink
• The archived post on a blog with only one post on
  the page
  
• Trackback
• A system that allows bloggers to see who is
  blogging about them. Bloggers send pings between
  blogs to establish links