In case you are new to the blogosphere (the world of blogs), this will serve as an introduction. Blog is short for “weblog”. At first glance, a blog is almost like a journal, but it is also much more.
The popularity of blogs is on the rise because they have become useful in some ways that regular web pages and email are not.
- Blogging is interactive. Instead of publishers having to guess what readers want, they can just read comments. At the bottom of every blog post, there is a spot where anyone can post a comment to the blog. This can be in the form of questions, suggestions, or feedback of any kind. This results in higher quality content being published.
- Updates are instant. Instead of having to come back and check a blog to see if there are any new posts, you can simply subscribe via RSS and be instantly notified as soon as there is an update to the blog. For more info see www.whatisrss.com.
- No junk. Subscribing via RSS is very different from receiving an email update. Email is like a box that anybody can put anything in. Because of this, you can’t stop people from placing junk in there. RSS is like a little gnome that goes out to fetch only the information you want from the sources you choose. He checks for updates several times per minute, and any time you want to stop receiving RSS feeds you can truly unsubscribe from the source. Unlike email where you hope the sender stops sending, with RSS you are telling your little gnome to stop getting info from that source, and nobody else has the ability to place anything in your RSS.
- Integrity. Because blogging is interactive, it makes it easier for the reader to separate fact from fiction. Imagine Al Gore has a blog, and in a post he claims that he invented the internet. Because anyone can comment, somebody can expose the misinformation for all other readers to see. When reading a blog, be sure to also read the comments for the full story.
Steps to using my blog:
- Download an RSS reader program and use it to subscribe to my RSS feed.
- Read my posts.
- Add comments to help me provide the quality information that you want.
