Why blog?

What is it?

The term blog is short for “weblog”. A blog is a discussion, journal or informational site published on the world wide web and consisting of discrete entries (“posts”) typically displayed in reverse chronological order.

The rise of blogs began in the late 1990s. Before this knowledge of programming languages like HTML and FTP had been required to publish content on the web. But the advent of blog software in the late 1990s made publishing on the web possible for people without a technical background. Now, maintaining a blog is not much more difficult than using Microsoft Word.

At first, most blogs were subject-specific or news related, and were comprised of a mix of links to news items and commentary on those items (Rebecca Blood, weblogs: a history and perspective, available at http://www.rebeccablood.net/essays/weblog_history.html).

Today, many blogs are still devoted to a particular subject. Others are online journals, and still others serve as advertising. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic (Wikipedia, available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog).

Regardless of the subject of a blog, it is generally written in a conversational informal voice, like a journal.

A blog can be edited by one author or by multiple authors. 

How is a blog different from a newsletter?

Although many blogs and newsletters have some similar functions, in that both are often subject-specific informational resources intended to inform and/or sway readers.  However, blogs and newsletters differ from in several ways.  First, traditionally, newsletters are printed materials whereas blogs are on the world wide web.  Second, a newsletter is typically distributed directly to a particular set of recipients while a blog is accessible to a particular audience (or to the entire world) but is not directly sent out.  Third, each newsletter includes only current information so past newsletters are not as easy to access as blogs.  As blogs are updated, the previous information is pushed lower on the site (and then into an archive)

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How is a blog different from an email?

A blog is different from an email in that blog entries are published on the web, and (depending on the blog's privacy settings) are available for viewing by a wide audience, many of whom the author doesn't know.  An email is a targeted communication sent directly to a recipient or set of recipients.

An email is also one discreet communication, while a blog is a forum for continuing communications.

How is a blog different from a website?

Blogs and websites have some similarities.  Both are accessed in a browser, both use regular URLs, and there might or might not be advertising (How is a Blog Different from a Website? http://blog.tennantconsulting.com/blog/2004/12/how_is_a_blog_d.html).

However, there are some important differences.

The first relates to the dynamic nature of the information provided.  A typical website is a fixed online medium, a relatively static site that provides information.  A typical website is not updated frequently.  A blog is a type of website that is updated frequently via blog posts.

A typical website is also authored by a set of administrators and is not collaborative.  Blogs are often collaborative because readers comment on blog posts and share them with their social networks. (What Makes a Blog Different from a Website? http://digitalsherpa.com/content-strategy/what-makes-a-blog-different-from-a-website)

What can you do with a blog?

You can post entries on any subject you choose.  You can post photos, videos, artwork and links to other sites.  You can also include interactive/collaborative materials, like polls and sections for reader comments.  If you have a particularly frequently-viewed blog, you can solicit advertisements and make money from your blog.

Why start a blog?

Some bloggers share their thoughts and feelings about specific topics or about the world in general.  Others use blogs to document a particular experience, like a special vacation or study abroad session or a personal trial, like a battle with a disease.  Others use blogs to share a professional experience, like archeologists on a dig.  These types of blogs enable readers to vicariously experience something, and because the blogs are updated frequently, the information is more current than it would be if the blogger published a memoir or a book.

Others use blogs to market their skills.  For example, aspiring fashion journalists and make-up artists use blogs to attract the attention of potential employers.

Others create blogs with multiple administrators for the purpose of keeping in touch.  For example, an extended family might set up a blog to share photos and news.  (Please note that this type of blog can be made private, so that it is not accessible to those outside the family - for more information on privacy settings, please see the post on setting up a blog).

How to set up a blog using Google Blogger

How can you set up a Google Blogger account? 

Before you can set up a blog using Google Blogger, you must have a Google account.  Therefore, if you don't have a Google account, you'll have to set one up before you can begin.

If you have an account for any Google services, then you have a Google account.  All Google services can be linked to one account.  Therefore, if have a Gmail account you have a Google account and you can use your Gmail address and password to log into Google Blogger.  Similarly, if you have an account with another Google service, like Google Reader, you can use this username and password to log into Google Blogger.

Once you're logged into blogger.com, click on the New Blog icon.  You can see the New Blog icon in the left-hand corner of the screenshot below.

A new window will appear.  In the window, enter a name for your blog in the space provided.  In the next space, enter a URL.

Click Create Blog and you've started your blog.

How to change the settings for your blog

Once you have created your blog, you may want to alter the administrative settings to allow you to control the number of people involved in creating the blog, the number of people able to view the blog, and other aspects of the blog, such as time zone, language, and visibility to search engines.  These administrative settings will be discussed in this post; changing the creative settings for your blog will be discussed in a later post.

Add authors/administrators

To allow additional people to create content for your blog, you can add them as authors.  If you would like them to be able to change administrative settings for your blog, you should make them administrators.  Both actions require the same first step:

From your admin area, choose Settings on the bottom of the left sidebar.

This will bring you to the Basic page, where you can add authors or administrators.  Under Permissions, click the link Add authors, and enter the email address(es) of the author(s) you would like to add.

If people accept your invitation to be an author on your blog, they will appear along with you in the Blog Authors box.

Once a person has accepted your invitation to be an author, you can change their privileges to Admin if you like.

Permissions to view the blog

You can determine who has permission to read your blog.  On the Settings/Basic page, under Permissions, click Edit next to Blog Readers.

You can decide if your blog is open to the public, or just the authors, or you can enter the email addresses of readers you choose to invite to view your blog (invited readers will need to log in each time to read your blog).  It's up to you!

Other privacy issues 

Do you want your blog to be visible to search engines? Do you want it listed in Google Blogger?  The default answer to each of these questions is YES, so if you want to change that answer, you will need to go to Settings/Basic, and under Privacy, and click Edit, next to Listed on Blogger.  Visible to search engines.

Other Blogger administrative settings

The Language and formatting settings section of Settings allows you to change the language of your blog, as well as the time zone and the format in which your times and dates appear.

The Search Preferences section of Settings allows you to enter a searchable description of your blog, effectively tagging it for search engines.

Under the Meta tags section, simply click on Edit, choose that you would like the Metatags description enabled, click Save changes, and then compose your description in the provided box.  Click Save changes again, and you will be more easily findable by search engines.

The Other section of Settings allows you to customize the RSS feed features of your blog, by editing the Site feed section.

How to post on your blog

Creating a post

Click on the orange button New Post, which is on the left sidebar of the Blogger administrative area.

Then, simply start typing in the white area of the page, below the menu bar. You can choose from a visual mode called Compose, or an HTML view, if you would prefer to code the post yourself.

Formatting choices

The menu bar for posts also includes (starting on the left) typical word-processing features, such as undo/redo, font style, font size, headings*, bold/italics/underline, font color, and highlighting. Starting on the right side and working in, you can check spelling, undo formatting, make quotations, and created bullets or format paragraphs.

There are also buttons to format links to webpages (Link), insert images (little picture icon), insert videos (little film clap board), or insert a "jump break" (torn paper icon) into your post.  Inserting images and videos will be discussed in a subsequent post, but adding links and jump breaks are discussed below.

*(In this post, I wanted the main text to be Normal,  "Creating a post" to be a Heading, "Formatting choices" to be a Subheading, and "Inserting links" to be a Minor Subheading, and so on, but I could not get the feature to work reliably.  Accordingly, I ended up manually formatting the text sizes as Large, Normal, and Normal with no line break, and bolding all of them.  In other postings, we experienced inexplicable insertions of coding that altered the font style, color, and/or size.  When we viewed the HTML of the page, we could see the errant code, but we could not determine why it appeared there in some cases, but not in others.)

Inserting links:  If you would like readers to be able to click on a link and go directly to another webpage, you will want to insert a link into your post: simply type the text you would like to be clicked on, highlight the text, and click Link.  A box will appear; type in the link of the webpage you would like to go to, choose whether it should open a new window, and save.  You can also just click on Link, enter the text that should direct to the link there in the box, and then carry on with the rest of the process.

Inserting jump breaks: If you would like to have your blog show an abbreviated post, and then have readers choose whether to click through to a longer post, you may insert a jump break by clicking on the jump break icon (torn sheet of paper icon),