The Everything Blogging Book: Publish Your Ideas, Get Feedback, And Create Your Own Worldwide Network

Introduction

You can participate in two main types of activities with blogs. First, you can read other people’s blogs for reasons ranging from conducting research to joining online discussions on a variety of topics to entertaining yourself. Second, you can create your own blog; that is, you can engage in blog publishing or blogging. The Everything® Blogging Book explores accessing and using blogs that already exist online, as well as the act of blogging.

There are many issues to consider before you start blogging. If you are accessing other people’s blogs, you need to consider the source before you use the information you find for any purpose other than pure entertainment. If you are publishing your own blog, think carefully about the purpose of your blog and try to stay focused on it in order to build the success of your blog.

If you’ve never published online before, you’ll also need to think about a few basic concepts before you even publish your first words. If you really want to have a successful blog—and you need to determine how you define that success—you have to commit to publishing in your blog on a regular basis. Even though blogging may be easy from a technical standpoint, building a popular or useful blog takes a time commitment.

While accessing other people’s blogs or creating your own blogs are the most popular aspects of blogs and blogging, you can also participate in online discussions and join online communities through either your own blog or blogs created by others. Blogs become more compelling when they do not consist solely of a single person’s ideas or opinions. Dynamic blogs take advantage of the technical feature that enables readers to post comments to the original blog publisher’s posts. When visitors to the blog post comments not only to the main posts but also to one another’s comments, the real appeal of blogging comes alive.

Blogging can be the perfect online-publishing tool, particularly for the person who is unfamiliar with hypertext markup language (HTML) or the basic building blocks of developing a Web site and Web programming. A variety of free and affordable blog-publishing tools are available on the Web, and for the most part, they are easy to use. One thing to remember, however, is that each blog host may offer slightly or very different features in their publishing tools. Therefore, choosing the right blog host is key to having a positive experience.

The Everything® Blogging Book takes you step by step through the blogging process to help you get the most out of the blogosphere (the universe of blogs and blogging online). Whether you think of a blog as an information resource or as a way to market yourself or establish yourself as an expert, this application can be useful on both personal and professional levels.

Although few blogs are financially successful, just as there are a limited number of successful content-oriented Web sites, blogs can still help you achieve some of your personal or business goals. Also, just as many e-commerce Web sites do not turn a profit, blogs that sell products or offer fee-based services do not always pay off for the blog owner.

Understanding the limitations of blogs and blogging is important in order to avoid costly mistakes. Taking advantage of free blog publishing is great when you have limited goals, but if you are looking to achieve something more than just fun or self-expression, investing a small amount of money into robust blogging tools is a good idea.

As the old adage says, You get what you pay for, so don’t expect too much from free blog-publishing tools. And keep in mind that the saying If you build it, they will come is mostly a myth when it comes to online publishing. If you build it, you will not only have to make sure you have created something compelling and worth accessing, but you will also have to implement some online and offline marketing tactics to get people to your blog.

Are you ready for a foray into the blogosphere? Fasten your virtual seat belts, sit back, and let The Everything® Blogging Book be your trusted guide into the world of blogs and blogging.

chapter 1

Welcome to Blogging

Blogging has become a social phenomenon, taking Web site publishing to a new level and allowing anyone to become an instant online publisher. Web sites are often used for one-way content publishing, such as communicating a marketing message or serving as a virtual store. Blogs are Web sites with a twist. Anyone who can read and write can publish a blog—no programming experience needed. Anyone can be the star of his or her blog and build an online community. Blogging makes basic Web sites look static by comparison.

What Is a Blog?

In the simplest terms, blog is short for Web Log or Weblog. A quick definition of a blog is an application that creates date and time-stamped posts that appear on a basic Web page and are generally accessible to the public via the Internet, often allowing visitors to the Web page to comment on the published posts. Most blogs are created with special blog-publishing software or tools.

This is an example of what a TypePad blog could look like. Used by permission of Aliza Sherman Risdahl.

Blogs can be personal, taking the form of diaries or journals. Blogs can also be more media oriented, such as the rantings and ravings of writers and other well-known or unknown personalities. Blogs can be used to publish information, but it is more likely that content leans more toward opinion than fact. There are news-oriented blogs that publish original news stories, and ones that compile information from other blogs and Web sites. Blogs can be based on original content, compiled content, linked content, or a combination of all three. When it comes to blogs and blogging, the blogger’s imagination is the only real limit.

Many sources agree that the term weblog was first used in December 1997 by Jorn Barger (www.robotwisdom.com/) to refer to a Web page containing a list or log with links to other Web pages that the Web logger found interesting. Barger is often credited with creating one of the first Web logs.

Internet Communication

The Internet and the Web are great environments for communication, whether it is one-to-one, one-to-many, or many-to-many contact. Understanding what a blog is requires an understanding of the nature of online communication on the Internet. Some of the most common communications tools online include:

E-mail. Electronic mail can be sent and received through an e-mail program, which can be Web based such as Hotmail.com, through an online service such as America Online (AOL), or through freestanding software such as Eudora or Mail.

E-mail lists. A subscription to an e-mail list enables a member to send a single e-mail to the list’s e-mail address. A copy of that e-mail is then broadcast to all list subscribers, who can respond by e-mail to either the original sender or the entire list.

Web sites. A Web site is technically a database of many files, such as text files that are linked together to form the framework of the site, as well as image, audio, or video files that are embedded into the pages.

Bulletin or message boards. A bulletin board or message board is a feature on a Web site that contains Web pages that allow visitors to the site to post comments and engage in discussions that are published and archived on the site. Message boards can also exist within online services such as AOL.

Guest books. In the early days of Web sites, guest books were commonly used to allow visitors to a site to post a message on a Web page, which would then appear on a long scrolling page along with posts from other visitors. For the most part, guest books were for leaving a comment, not for interactive communication.

E-mail is most often used for one-to-one communication. It can also be used as a one-to-many communication tool when more than one e-mail address is entered into the To: field, the Cc: field (carbon copy), or the Bcc: field (blind carbon copy). Another example of one-to-many e-mail broadcasting is with e-mail lists.

Web sites are what could be considered the multimedia portion of the Internet. Web sites are generally used for one-to-many communication because the Web publisher is putting his or her information on the Web for many people to access.

An example of many-to-many broadcasting online is a Web site that contains a bulletin or message board that allows anyone to post or respond to a post and then makes those posts accessible to the public or to site members and archives them on the site.

This is an example of a blog created on the AOL Journal site. Used by permission of Aliza Sherman Risdahl.

Understanding Online Communities

One dynamic social phenomenon of the Internet and Web is the formation of communities of like-minded people who find one another online and communicate on a regular basis, most often about a specific topic.

In the early days of the Internet, communities formed on technically primitive message boards called Usenet Newsgroups to discuss a wide range of topics and with names such as soc.women and alt.travel. Communities were mostly open to the public but could be private (accessible to members only).

In the 1960s, the military developed the foundation of today’s Internet as a communications tool that could withstand a nuclear attack. The Internet generally consisted of computers networked via communications lines that were mostly buried underground. Eventually, the academic world learned about the network of computers and began using it as a communications tool.

Communities could be fully moderated, meaning that someone was in charge of screening every post before it appeared on the board, or partially moderated, meaning that a moderator was in charge to help keep discussions on track and to settle disputes between community members. Boards without moderators meant a chaotic style of group discussion. Over time, as visitors turned into regular community members, they learned the unwritten and written rules of behavior within the community.

Nonmoderated communities are often considered self-policing, meaning that community members help maintain order and generally polite discourse. When discussions digress into personal attacks, those outbreaks are called flame wars, and the inappropriate and attacking posts are called flames.

The general dynamics of an online community are not limited to message boards but can also be experienced on e-mail lists and on blogs. If visitors to a blog are allowed to comment on the blogger’s posts and then begin to comment on one another’s posts, sparking discussion, a community begins to form.

Communities on blogs are considered partially moderated because the blog can allow comments to be posted freely to the site (at least, this is a feature that most blog-publishing tools offer). A blogger, however, also has the ability to delete any post she deems inappropriate, and because it is her blog, her rules apply. Therefore, a blogger is a moderator of her own blog if she allows visitors to make comments and then chooses to edit those comments in any way.

This is what a blog created using Blogger could look like. Used by permission of Aliza Sherman Risdahl.

Blogs Versus E-mail

Both blogs and e-mail are online communications tools. Some of the ways that blogs can be similar to and different from e-mail include:

Both can be Web based, which means their functionality is based within a Web site and on Web pages.

Both usually (but not always) originate from one person.

E-mails are considered messages. Blog posts are considered entries on a page.

E-mails originate from a sender and are sent to a recipient or recipients. Blog posts originate with the blogger and are sent to the blog and then posted on a blog’s Web page.

E-mails are generally considered private messages between the sender and recipient(s). Although blog posts can be private between the blogger and a specified group of visitors who have been granted access, they are more often public messages posted by the blogger.

E-mails are most often meant to be one-to-one communication unless the sender is using an e-mail list, which is then one-to-many. Blog posts are most often used for one-to-many communication, although the many can also be limited to one or to a few others.

E-mails are typically archived on a person’s computer within his email software program. If he is using Web-based e-mail, then the archive exists on the Web. Blog posts are usually archived on the Web. Sometimes a blogger may archive his posts on his computer, but this is not a common practice.

Simply put, e-mail is sent to one person or to many people via the Internet. A blog post is not sent away; it is sent to the blog, appears on the blog, and remains within the blog in an archive.

Blogs Versus Message Boards

Web sites in the mid-1990s did not have bulletin or message boards. In those days, message boards were more likely to be found on the Internet in the form of Usenet Newsgroups or on self-contained online services such as small Bulletin Board Systems (BBSs) or larger commercial services such as America Online, CompuServe, and Prodigy.

Before Web-based message boards were developed, Web sites had a simple feature called a Guestbook, where a visitor to the site could fill out a Web-based form with a message, hit a Submit button, and then see her comment posted on a Web page on the site. Web site owners encouraged people to sign my guest book as a way of getting feedback from visitors and of showing other visitors that the site was popular.

Just how popular is blogging?

On May 14, 2005, the total number of identified blogs was 10,914,099. The total number of new blogs in the last twenty-four hours on that date was 43,653. (Source: Intelliseek’s BlogPulse.com)

As the Web became increasingly popular, some creative people began to use simple guest-book features to communicate with one another. One person would post a comment. Then she would wait a little while, hitting her Web browser Refresh button until she saw a new comment from another visitor. She would respond to that comment and a conversation would begin.

Eventually, technology caught up with demand. As more people gravitated toward the Web, sites began developing Web-based message boards to meet the demand for interactive communication between visitors.

Comparing blogs to Web-based message boards makes a lot more sense. Blogs are similar to message boards in a number of ways:

Both have mechanisms that allow visitors to post messages that are published online.

Both allow visitors to view posts and to comment on anything they read, often forming communities as posters get to know one another.

Posts can often be organized by category or topic, and comments are usually grouped together to keep similar content in the same place. On bulletin or message boards, these groups of consecutive posts related to the same topic are called threads.

Both automatically archive content indefinitely.

Both can allow a moderator to have administrative capabilities to edit content and delete posts. (Message boards don’t always have a moderator.)

Both can be completely open to the public or they can be set to require registration (usually free) and a user ID or username and password to access. Message boards frequently require a visitor to go through a registration process before posting on a board.

Blogs usually originate from a single person, the blogger, and conversation most often originates from their posts. Message boards can be set up by a person or even an organization or company; they are more likely to be an open forum for members that facilitates discussion and interactivity.

This is an example of a blog created using Tripod. Used by permission of Aliza Sherman Risdahl.

Less common are blogs that have multiple authors who take turns posting; each author may have different degrees of administrative abilities. Usually, not all authors are administrators or moderators of a single blog. More often, one person is assigned the role of administrator or moderator to avoid confusion and ensure consistency.

With blogs, anything goes; no rules are hard and fast. Other than the limitations of the blog-publishing tools, a blogger has full control of his blog in terms of management, creation, and development.

How Blogs Evolved

Blogs are somewhat like personal Web sites. Personal sites became popular in the mid-1990s and were initially built by individuals who had a Webhosting account through an Internet Service Provider (ISP) and HTML (hypertext markup language) skills to program pages with links and embedded images. They uploaded their linked files on to a Web server, which is a computer dedicated to the Web twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Web hosts allotted space to subscribers to host their Web pages. The Web pages were linked together to form a Web site.

Soon, programmers and technology companies developed free online Web-based site-publishing tools such as Tripod.com and Angelfire.com. These tools took away the need for HTML skills to build a Web site. They offered templates that members could use to build a Web site by making design choices with the click of a button. Once they entered their content into Web-based forms and pressed a Submit or Publish button, their site was created and stored online, accessible to the public.

In terms of content on personal Web sites, anything was possible. Writers published their writing, photographers published their photos, and artists published photographs or scanned images of their art. Individuals posted personal diaries or journals. Academics posted their curricula vitae, students posted their resumes, and consultants posted their bios and client lists.

Eventually, families began using personal Web sites to post and share memorable family events, such as photos from vacations, reunions, births, and weddings.

Then the Web caught the attention of big companies that were spending millions of dollars trying to make sense of the online medium, sometimes succeeding (as in the case of Amazon.com) and sometimes failing miserably (as, for example, the original Pathfinder.com from Time Warner that never became a profitable business).

One of the main reasons early efforts on the Web failed was that no one had figured out how to make money with or on the Web. A company like Time Warner had millions of dollars available to spend on what really amounted to an experiment by creating a gateway and content hub on the Web. There were not enough revenue streams or ways to make money in those early days, so the heads of a major effort like Pathfinder.com hired too many people and spent more money than the project could earn. Finally, the company had to pull the plug on the money-losing Web site. Today, Pathfinder.com is nothing more than a gateway into the online versions of the company’s print publications.

Eventually, people learned how to sell advertising on Web sites that was similar to traditional television, radio, and print media. Then other people learned how to sell products and services via the Web through newly invented e-commerce sites or sites that offered a way for people to pay online with their credit card and secure transactions to protect those credit cards.

Blogs evolved from Web sites, but most blogs do not make money. They do not charge a subscription fee to access them, they do not usually sell advertising, and they do not usually sell products or services.

The Importance of Linking

Linking from one Web page to another Web page is how a Web site is constructed. Linking from one Web site to another Web site is the foundation of the World Wide Web. In the early days, a Web page that had a long page of regularly updated links to other Web sites and some commentary about those sites was known as a list of links.

If you had a link on your Web site leading your visitors to another site, you were linking to that site. If a different Web site had a link to your site on one of their Web pages, they were linking to your Web site. If you linked to another site and it linked back to you, that was a reciprocal link.

Linking was not only the foundation of Web sites and the Web, but it also quickly became advantageous to have links to your Web site, because that was often the best way for other people to learn about your site. Linking to other sites eventually became beneficial as well. Even though it sounds counterintuitive to send people away from your Web site through links, sometimes the more links you have to relevant sites, the more your own site becomes a resource to others. Also, some search engines measure the number of links you have to determine the usefulness of your site. See Chapter 19 for more details on search engines and marketing your blog.

Eventually, a Web site containing long lists of links that were regularly updated and had commentary about those sites became known as a weblog. The shortened version—blog—became both noun and verb. You visit and read a blog (noun), but you also blog (verb) in order to build and update a blog.

This is an example of a blog made using MindSay. Used by permission of Aliza Sherman Risdahl.

By 1999, the first online blog-publishing tools to help people build blogs were launched, including Groksoup (now defunct), Pitas.com, and Pyra, which eventually changed its name to Blogger. In 2003, the Oxford English Dictionary included weblog, weblogger, and weblogging. Companies that went into the business of not only creating blog-publishing tools but also hosting blogs became known as blog hosting services, blog hosts, or blog providers.

Blog Power

Some people attribute the sudden surge in blog popularity to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, when blogs that published information and opinions on the War on Terrorism gained large and loyal followings. War Bloggers, as they have been called, catapulted online commentators into the public eye; some even gained reputations and readership that rivaled established media outlets.

To take advantage of the public interest in blogs, major news and media outlets as well as well-known and well-respected journalists and old media personalities jumped into the fray, using blogs as a real-time publishing tool to attract and maintain readers.

Many of the blog controversies that made national news centered around politically focused blogs. Blogging has even played a role in the war in Iraq, with not only American soldiers blogging but also Iraqi civilians. Because of the instantaneous publishing aspect of blogs, they easily became useful and timely information tools during national and international events and crises.

Keep in mind that blog-publishing sites or hosts aren’t always permanent. When deciding on a blog host, look for sites that have been around for a number of years. Blog hosts owned by larger companies may also be more secure. Contact a potential blog host’s customers or technical support. A prompt and helpful response is a