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Blogging

Ablog (short for Web log) is an online diary. From a high-level point of view, a blog is simply a Web page that is updated every day or so with new thoughts, comments, and links to interesting Web content. But blogs have taken on a life of their own and can be seen as an art form, a creative outlet, and a whole new way of looking at the Web or even at the world. Blogging solves the biggest problem people have after they get their initial Web site up, that is, wondering what do I do now? A regular Web site can seem rather complete and finished and leave you (and the user) wondering where new, fresh content goes. With a blog, new, fresh content is the whole reason for the site and all you have to do to keep the site alive is update it regularly.

TheWorld of Blogging

Blogs came to many people’s attention through politics. The abortive presidential campaign of Howard Dean, Democratic candidate for president of the United States, reached a peak of popularity and hype in late 2003 and early 2004. At the center of the campaign’s success in attracting money and volunteers was the Internet and at the center of the campaign’s Internet strategy was the candidate’s blog. The 2004 Dean campaign itself became its own Internet ‘‘bubble.’’ Many of Howard Dean’s advisers went from eyeing office space in the West Wing to looking for another campaign to join in a few short weeks in early 2004. But blogging continued to grow, having shown what a powerful tool it can be for getting people’s attention.

In this presidential cycle of 2008 there is a definite generational gap in the use of the Internet as a source of politicial activity and news gathering according to a survey of Internet usage during the 2008 campaign by the Pew Research Center. While 24% of the population overall learns something about the campaign off the Internet, almost half of young people ages 18 to 29 (42%) said they regularly got such information from the Internet. Both figures represent a doubling of use over January 2004. 27% of young people under 30 (and 37% of those under 24) cite the social networking sites of YouTube and Facebook as sources for their election and campaign news.

Only 8% of the population admit to having actually visited a candidate’s Web site. This is the same percent as those who visit sites satirizing the campaign. Blogs already have their own subculture and vocabulary. Blogging is maintaining your blog by adding new content to it; the blogosphere is the wonderful world of blogs, which tend to be extensively linked to each other. (Some of the most popular blogs are simply updates about the latest postings on other blogs.) Many people spend several hours a day cruising their favorite blogs and adding new content to their own. But you don’t have to devote your life to blogging to get a lot out of it. Even major news outlets post updates (in lively areas such as politics) in blog form, and many Web site creators have added a blog to their existing sites. One way to use a blog is as a tool for adding news (and new interest) to existing Web or even printed content. The blog is hosted on Typepad, a popular tool. The blog takes what might seem a rather dry subject and brings it to life with frequent updates.

Using Blogger

For several years now, the Number One tool for blogging has been a Web site with an easy name to remember: Blogger (http://www.blogger.com). Blogger makes it very easy to create your own Web site based around a blog of your own.

Blogger is a great way to get started with blogging or even to make your initial foray into Web publishing. That’s because blogging keeps you focused on providing new content and Blogger makes it very easy to create an initial site and to keep it updated.

A brief history of Blogger

Blogger was started several years ago by Pyra Labs, an energetic small company that recognized the potential of blogging early on. Blogger was begun as an easy-to-use, entry-level tool for creating blogs. It quickly became extremely popular, gaining more than a million registered users. Being this popular, however, created challenges. Being the most popular brand in the blogosphere meant that hundreds of new users a day came to Blogger to get started but these new users wanted a very easy-to-use tool with a lot of support. The experienced users wanted the tool to have depth so they could take their blogs further. Creating tools that can meet such a wide range of needs is expensive. So, Blogger itself needed some support.

Along came Google. As the most popular search engine on the Web, Google was a natural fit for the most popular blogging tool on the Web. Google needed to get better at helping its users search blogs and Blogger needed Google’s resources to keep improving what it offered. In 2003, Google acquired Pyra Labs, its six employees, and its 1 million-plus registered users. Shortly afterward, the tool was improved with a spellchecker, increased stability, user-friendliness, and other new features and it continues to be upgraded and improved.

As with many other free Web services, Blogger hosts advertising on your pages and keeps the revenue for itself. It’s not a bad tradeoff for what you get, and you can always move to an alternative service that doesn’t include advertising although you’ll probably have to pay for the privilege. Radio Userland (http://www.userland.com) is one alternative paid service to consider if you want an ad-free site. It is also possible that your hosting provider has blogging tools available. The setup process described here will put your blog on blogspot.com, with a name something like yourname.blogspot.com. To have your site hosted elsewhere, use the advanced blog setup at http://www.blogger.com/adv-create-blog.g, described at the end of this article. To use the advanced setup, you’ll need details such as the FTP server to use; ask for help from your site’s host if you need it.