Sep 16 2007
What is a Blog?
Jeff has asked, and I’ve agreed, that I contribute to his blog and provide a technical voice to an already wonderful and informative site. I’ve decide that I would start with a couple of the questions I get a lot and then see where the muse takes us. So, without further adieu…
One of the most common questions I get asked these days is: What is a Blog?
Let’s take a look at the definition according to the almighty Wikipedia:
A blog (a fusion of the words ‘web’ and ‘log’) is a website where entries are written in chronological order and commonly displayed in reverse chronological order. “Blog” can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.
Blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject such as food, politics, or local news; some function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (artlog), photographs (photoblog), sketchblog, videos (vlog), music (MP3 blog), audio (podcasting) or sexual topics (Adult blog), and are part of a wider network of social media. Micro-blogging is another type of blogging which consists of blogs with very short posts.
In May 2007, blog search engine Technorati was tracking more than 71 million blogs.
Not bad overall. I like to tell people something a little simpler: a Blog is about communicating to your audience your thoughts about any given subject on which you are passionate.
Now, what do I mean by ‘passionate’? That’s pretty simple too - if you enjoy Golf and you hate NASCAR - under no circumstances should you start a blog extolling the virtues of NASCAR. You don’t like NASCAR so you will hate writing about it and your blog and your desire to maintain it will soon die. You could always, of course, begin an ‘I hate NASCAR’ blog and be extremely passionate about the subject, but that won’t necessarily be a good thing for you in the long run.
But Golf… If you love it, if you love the smell of fresh cut grass in the morning, the way the dew settles on the first tee because you’re the first group of the day and the sun is barely up - then a Golf blog is the thing for you. Not for me though - I’m a night owl. Golf at night would be cool though…
You have to enjoy what you are talking about if you want to be successful and happy in your writing - and a blog is about writing. You are communicating your thoughts and ideas in a way that, hopefully, other people will enjoy as well. It’s the beginning of a discourse as you put your thoughts out there for people to react and reply to so the conversation can begin.
The blog as it’s known today, has evolved from what was essentially an online diary into a powerful communications tool. Fortune 500 companies are starting to blog ( Amazon for example) so they can keep the public in the loop on things going on with the company. Politics makes for big blogging as Conservatives battle Liberals. A new culture has emerged and blogging has become an alternate and often controversial new source of news coining phrases like ‘dinosaur media’ when referring to ‘traditional’ news sources of television, radio and print media. RSS takes that even further, but we’ll discuss ‘RSS’ in another post.
What does all of this mean to you, the casual reader? Well, number one: change is good - change breeds innovation and evolution. Blogging has opened up a world of insight and opinions that hasn’t been available before to the average person who can, with a few clicks of a mouse (think Livejournal or Blogger), put their thoughts, hopes and dreams out there for the whole world to see and respond to. It’s opening lines of communication that haven’t always been there and getting people to just talk again about everything from their favorite cat photos to global warming. It’s noninvasive in that you can be at home in your PJ’s and still hold a solid, engaging conversation that affects how people think about any given subject.
In the end, if one person appreciates your efforts and finds something useful in what you have to say, you have affected change in one persons mind and that, that can be a huge thing.
Next time we’ll talk about the second most common question I get asked: Should I be blogging?
[...] last time we talked, it was about one of the most commonly asked questions I get: What is a blog? Now, we’re going to talk a little bit about the second most common question people ask me: [...]