Blogging - What Is A Blog?

What Is A Blog?

Q: Not to ask a ridiculously obvious question, but what is a blog? And what's the future of blogs and blogging?

A: By a remarkable coincidence, Steven Streight, aka Vaspers the Grate, just asked me the very same questions about the definition of blogs on his own site, so rather than write something new, I'm just going to quote what I wrote for him:

What is your definition of a "blog"?

A blog isn't what everyone thinks it is.

In fact, on this very page, you have a pile of definitions of blogs that I disagree with.

Why?

Because everyone likes to focus on the *presentation* of information and blogs are really all about the *management* of information.

Here's what I mean: if you think that a blog is a web site characterized by frequent articles displayed in chronological order, typically with timestamps, a la a journal or diary, you're missing the forest for the trees.

Weblogs, instead, are just the facade that we see of considerably more powerful content management systems that really revolutionize the maintenance of Websites.

Look at it this way: if you're not using a blog to help manage your site, when was the last time you added any new content or revised an existing page?

When you do add content, do you make sure to link it into all the other pages on your site, including your sitemap?

Sure, there are other software solutions for managing Web sites, but none that are as flexible, easy, inexpensive, and SEO-friendly as weblogs.

What is the future of blogs?

Having said that, I think that blogs are going to go the way of the dinosaur, evolving from an animal we spot into the petroleum we use to fuel our journeys, without giving an iota of thought to the source of the petroleum.

It's not that blogs aren't cool and interesting, but just as geeks used to learn PostScript so they could work with printers and display systems and now...

...have no idea that PostScript is the underlying language of many devices, so we'll find that we can focus on our sites, how the information is displayed and how we utilize it for our needs.

After all, the bottom line is the same as it was before the blogging "phenomenon":

How do you find the best, most useful and valuable information on the Internet for any given question, problem or query?

Dave Taylor is an internationally recognized expert on business and technical topics and is the author of 18 different books and thousands of magazine articles. His Q&A Web site is http://www.askdavetaylor.com/

Car Insurance | Car Rentals | Health Insurance | Weight Loss | Life Insurance

| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |

What The Heck Is A Blog?
Everybody is talking about blogs. They are everywhere: on the TV, in the newspapers, and all over the internet. With the number of blogs doubling every five months, there is no stopping the power of blogs.But what the heck is a blog? For the elegant simplicity and beauty that blogs create, they certainly have an ugly, ungainly name. Blawg sounds like some kind of gurgling sound your cat makes before coughing up a hairball.A blog, short for weblog, is often described as an online diary. The most recent entries (called posts) - appear on the homepage of the blog with links to archives of older posts. Archives are organized by date and often categorized by topic. Often, each post will have a form for readers to add their own comments and to give their opinion or reaction to the post's content.But that's just what a blog looks like...(related: Blogging)

How To Get A Blog On The Internet
Of all people in the world I was easily one of the most pessimistic about computers, the Internet and now that I even know they exist-blogs. I think blogs are pretty cool but I never thought I could have one. I thought the processes of getting a site; domain name and the actual building of the blog would just be out of my league. I'm a complete novice when it comes to technology, but I do like writing a journal, and I thought having a journal on-line would be b...(related: Blogging)

Rss Is Not Only For Blogs
Contrary to popular opinion, RSS is not only good for delivering content from your blog, although blogs are what made RSS so popular.In fact, RSS can be used to deliver a great variety of content and content types. If you can break down your content in to individual stories or individual pieces, you can deliver it via RSS.Just to give you an impression of the power of RSS, here are some examples of content you can publish using it ?--> MarketingVOX is using RSS to deliver internet marketing news to their readers as it...(related: Blogging)

3 Tips To Improve Your Rss Marketing
3 Tips to improve your RSS marketingYou have created an RSS feed, or maybe you have several feeds and you post at least once a week to keep your RSS subscribers interested. So now you can sit back and watch your hit counter tally up all thos...(related: Blogging)

Your Rss Feed Might Look Like Spam
RSS feeds seem to be the breakout technology for the year. With more users turning to them for driving traffic to their site, it's no wonder that a trail of RSS feed spam is following in the wake. A careful editing of your RSS feed could make the difference between being classified as genuine content or RSS spam.RSS search engines are just beginning to pick up steam. As more RSS feeds become searchable, the number of visitors will increase and spam is sure to follow. It is an unfortunate side effect of free communication. While RSS users can typically unsubscribe to feeds they deem as spam, browsing with keywords in an RSS search engine is where the problem arises.RSS spam largely consists of three main types most...(related: Blogging)

How Weblogs Can Help Realtors
What is a weblog, well simply put a weblog is a journal that is kept online. In it's simplest form a weblog will have an article every day or week that says what the person is doing.A great way the weblogs are now being utilised is as a marketing device that allows a person to market directly to their customer without the hassles of email or especially direct mail. Just off the top of my head I can tell you what kind of information can be included in these weblog articles: info on new market trends, personal achievements, buyer and seller success stories, personal stories to personalize yoou to youor public. How else can ...(related: Blogging)

What Is This Rss, Xml, Rdf, And Atom Business?
It's been a long day at work and you're in no mood to cook dinner or go out. Time to count on the reliable pizza delivery guy. The order is called in and he promptly ...(related: Blogging)

How To Create A Blog
Blogs are more permanent than posts to an online discussion list, more dynamic than older-style home pages. They are more personal than traditional journalism, and definitely more public than diaries. A blog is often a mixture of what is happening in a person's life and what is happening on the Web, a kind of hybrid diary site. So, there are as many unique types of blogs as there are people.Blogs enable interaction and invite others to reward a person's creative effort with feedback. They weave new social networks, introducing people with common passions. Another reason why one should start blogging is dissemination of "micro-opinions" important ...(related: Blogging)

Why Blogs Have Become The Search Engine Optimization Equalizer
ALEXA WEIGHS IN...For those who are unaware of Alexa, it offers an interesting tool to webmasters. The service is designed to value websites based on the number of people who visit those sites and the activities of those people while they are on a site.Keep in mind that their results are skewed to the activities of those who use the Alexa toolbar. If your website is Business-to-Business oriented, then the results may be useful to your needs. If yo...(related: Blogging)

Rss Directory Submission: The Key To Blog Promotion
According to Technorati, there are over 15 million blogs as of July 2005. And during July, an average of 80,000 new blogs were created each day. If you own a blog, how are you going to promote it in order to stay ahead of the competition?Fortunately, there is a simple, yet very effective method: RSS directory submission. Submitting your RSS newsfeed to specialized news directories benefits your site in several ways.RSS directory submission increases you...(related: Blogging)