The Art of Blogging - Part 1 & 2 by George Siemens
Part 1 is described as Overview, Definitions, Uses, and Implications while part 2 is devoted to Getting Started, “How To”, Tools, Resources. Read extracts from both parts in ‘More’.
Part 1
“What is blogging?
Blogging, as with any new (or in transition) concept, is difficult to define - it has not yet fully become what it will be. Here are some attempts to define blogging:
“If we look beneath the content of weblogs, we can observe the common ground all bloggers share—the format. The weblog format provides a framework for our universal blog experiences, enabling the social interactions we associate with blogging…These tools spit out our varied content in the same format—archives, permalinks, time stamps, and date headers.” (Meg Hourihan)
Dave Winer defines weblogs as being: personal, on the web, published, and part of communities.
Halley Suitt details multiple characteristics, including: last place on earth to tell the truth, watching brains at work, a love letter, a diary, an open head - for the reader’s convenience.
“But what bloggers do is completely new - and cannot be replicated on any other medium. It’s somewhere in between writing a column and talk radio. It’s genuinely new. And it harnesses the web’s real genius - its ability to empower anyone to do what only a few in the past could genuinely pull off. In that sense, blogging is the first journalistic model that actually harnesses rather than merely exploits the true democratic nature of the web. It’s a new medium finally finding a unique voice.” (Andrew Sullivan)
“The best description I?ve read regarding blogging is that ?it?s somewhere between writing a column and talk radio.?” (Cass McNutt)
“A blog is defined as a Website with dated entries, usually by a single author, often accompanied by links to other blogs that the site?s editor visits on a regular basis. Think of a blog as one person?s public diary or suggestion list. Early blogs were started by Web enthusiasts who would post links to cool stuff that they found on the Internet. They added commentary. They began posting daily. They read one another?s blogs. A community culture took hold.” (Jay Cross)”
Part 2
“Getting Started
The best way to learn to blog is to blog. Fortunately, getting started is fairly simple. Three main options exist: hosted, remote server, and desktop.
A hosted service is the easiest and quickest way to start. Services like Blogger allow new users to set up an account (for free or a premium version for $35 per year) and begin posting literally in a matter of minutes. Blogger can host the blog, or the user can post to his/her own site.
A remotely installed blog is perhaps the most involved to setup. Movabletype allows users to install on a server (free for non-commercial, $150 for commercial). Some technical skills are required to configure the blog and database. Documentation, however, is excellent for Movabletype. Installation is also offered for a fee.”
