Using blogs
1. What are blogs? Why are blogs different?
Blogs (or weblogs) are publicly accessible homepages or websites. The content of blogs are called blog-entries: individual stories or comments, arranged chronologically within the blog.
Blogs generally reflect the personality of the author or contributor (the blogger). As they are cheaper and easier to maintain than other types of website, they are often owned by individuals rather than organisations. They are often free-form in style, with less strict editorial control than usually found on other websites. Topics sometimes include personal commentary on the news, social issues and the Internet, often with links to other web sites. They are generally updated frequently, often several times a day.
Subject-specific blogs often offer commentary on issues in the news and some can be very well informed topically and academically. But some blogs can be someone's thoughts on topics personal to them and perhaps them alone.
Blog-entries often allow comments to be added by readers, allowing a discussion to be maintained between author and reader. Similarly, bloggers frequently link to and comment on other people's blog-entries, allowing conversations to develop between blogs.
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2. Reading or searching
You have a choice about how to find or keep up to date with Blog-produced content:
(a) Newsreaders / aggregators
Many blogs get their content to readers using "newsfeeds" (sometimes also known as RSS, Atom or XML). These are essentially a list of the titles of the latest blog entries, with a web link to the full text of the entry. You choose which newsfeeds you want to read regularly. To read these, you need a newsfeed reader (sometimes called an aggregator). The latest versions of web-browsers and email readers may also allow you to read these newsfeeds. In addition some websites are offering online access to your selection of newsfeeds.
(b) Email
Some blogs offer email udpates. When a new blog entry is added, registered readers will be emailed a copy of the entry. However, not all blogs currently offer this option.
(c) Searching for blog entries
Search engines such as Google do include content from some blogs in their normal search engines, but the specialist blog-only search engines probably give better results
There are also search engines which only search blog content. These might be useful if you want to find recent commentary (as the search results are usually sorted by date of posting). You might also find it useful if you want to restrict your search to personal commentary.
Places to start your search:
- Google Blog Search: includes some content from blogs which do not appear in the main Google search. It lets you search for blogs by topic and author and date
- Icerocket offers blog searching as one of its web search tools
- Technorati aims to "track the number of links, and the perceived relevance of blogs, as well as the real-time nature of blogging"
Global Voices is tracking country and regional information provided by bloggers. It is a guide to conversations, information, and ideas appearing around the world on various forms of participatory media such as blogs, podcasts, photo sharing sites, and videoblogs.
(d) Finding entire blogs by subject
- Blog Finder allows you to search for blogs keyword or look for them by topic area.
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3. Becoming a blogger
- Blogger.com (now part of Google) allows you to set up your own blog for free, using a template.
- Word Press offers additional technical features and a free hosting service at http://wordpress.com/
- Services such as MySpace offer free personal blogs as part of a set of wider social networking tools.
