Whats a real blog?

I read an interesting post that took a new spin on a question that I've discussed at some length in our How to Blog Course. What is a blog?

We were interested initially (the course has evolved) as teaching blogging as a type of creative writing. For us, it was related to the diary, journal, or confessional but had an episodic or serial structure and most importantly, the writing included elements of audience participation, promotion, and an involvement in the world around us. Our approach to explaining blogs was to create categories saying that there are personal blogs; there are hybrids of personal blogs with either business, advocacy, or non-profit purposes; and there are sites which use blog software as a CMS (content management system) but which aren't blogs at all.

Edward De Leau has a post in his blog Why the whole world is wrong about weblogs in which he makes the distinction between weblogs as a media format and weblogs as the technology or CMS behind a website. He belabors it at some length but his definitions are tight and his cartoons are nice.



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Why do I need one of those blog thingys?

I was just reading LisaDesign's blog, a web designer in Rapid City. And she gave the most charming answer that I've heard as to how blogs help:

It's like candy for search engines.

It's a cuter way of saying (and I quote an old post of mine and some speaker years ago): Blogging is also a great way to build position in the search engines. Its been suggested that B-L-O-G is not so much an abbreviation for Web-Log but the secret to a Better Listing On Google.

Her post explains how each article contributes to your position: like "compounding interest". I like Lisa's writing and analogies...Her website is nice, her blog is beautifully written. And I'm sure when she has time she'll upgrade her blog to SEO-friendly URLs...

For those who don't know what a search engine friendly URL is. Look at Lisa's blog. The most recent article has this URL: http://lisawebdesigns.com/?p=71

Google reads this and can't find much in that URL to help it "digest" her content. If she had SEO friendly URLs, it would read: http://lisawebdesigns.com/why-do-i-need-one-of-those-bloggy-thingys.htm . Of course, this would help Google understand that her article has something to do with things and needs and bloggies. So with user-friendly URLs, you start paying a little more attention to searched keywords and a little less to extreme cuteness. While SEO friendly-URLS are only one part of Google "digesting" your content, every little bit helps. I was working on a site built in druple today (about learning today) in which you get to tell the system the keywords to use in the URLS.

How do I know all this blog stuff? It's because I'm the co-creator and one of the first students of a course on blogging. Let me recommend that if you are starting or thinking of starting to blog, you take this course. It's fun and you learn in 8 pleasant weeks, what could take you a year of figuring out on your own, the hard way.

One last blog point: I am frequently asked what blog software people should I use? Blogger? Wordpress? Typepad? Should it be hosted on a private domain (like Http://www.BBat50.com or http://www.parentaltech.com) or sit on a shared site (like this one on http://learn-to-market-online116.blogspot.com/ or http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/edmouse)?

The long answer is take the blogging class, the short answer is that you should start by just using a shared host somewhere since it's easier and you can move it later. Do pay attention to use the most recent version of whichever software you choose. I love the recent versions of both WordPress and Blogger. The older versions are just a pain compared the simplicity of the new ones.

This post sponsored by the best homeschool curriculum.....Time4Learning.com

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Social Media Networking Integration with this Blog!

Ft Lauderdale, FL February 18th, 2008 - For Immediate Release - I finally got some help and got some of the social media stuff tightly integrated in my blogs. For instance, in this post, you will see at the bottom, you can just click on these links and help share this story with others and bookmark it for yourself.

Now I grant you, this is not much of a post. But have you seen my recent series over at the blog on homeschool curriculum? My recent series is great! At least I think so - Take a look

History Today - Kosova's War of Independence or Serbia's Civil War...you decide.
Textbooks & Education
Why did we adopt the constitution? Part 2
Why did we adopt the constitution?
Homeschooling and the internet



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Blog Subscriptions by Email - It Works!

My blogs have been a source of satisfaction and frustration to me.

They are satisfying in that, as blogger says, push-button publishing is possible.
They are frustrating in that, in the fine print, we learn: some assembly is required.

They are satisfying in that templates and more templates are only a mouse click away.
They are frustrating in that some template don't support some features.

Frustrating: I couldn't figure out how to let people subscribe by email.
Satisfying. I posted the email subscription to blogger question to the forum yesterday, and implemented the subscribe-by-email today (on my 2nd try but that's more satisfaction than frustration). THANK YOU FEEDBURNER / BLOGGER / GOOGLE :->


Satisfying. I can tell my story my way on my blog
Frustrating: I'm not that good at crafting stories.
Satisfying: I am going to take a course in story-telling focused on writing for blogs. I'm going to get a Black Belt in Blogging!

Blogging Software - Todays problems

I have a few problems with the current generation of blogging software. I wonder if my list is very different than most others.

1. Sticky. Most forums allow the moderator to mark a comment or thread "sticky". This means that this posting, even when it's not the most recent, stays at the top. I can't seem to find this feature in the blogger or wordpress, the two blogging systems that I use. I'm about to try Typepad so stay tuned..

2. Subscribe to updates by email. This elusive feature is one that I would really like. The comments section allows users (including the moderator) to get emails about new comments but I'm talking about having a simple subscription method to get emails about all updates to the blog. I gather that RSS would be better system but I don't seem to understand RSS and I'd really like it to be a simple email system. Even the feedburner addition to wordpress and blogger is lacking this.

3. More HTML functionality such as tables in blog posts. While it's cool to be able to post videos and images, I sometimes try to put some info on a blog post that is best done as a table. While I succeeded after laborious efforts, it should be simplified (by the way, I did figure out some of the bugs and workarounds in blogger for tables but I can't seem to find my write-up here. Maybe it's on another blog, maybe it's on a forum. Ask if you want to see it)

4. Integrated trackbacks, stats, and subscriptions. Basically, I like that google bought feedburner and is integrating them. I just want it done already plus, I'd like them to remember us mortal non-techie users and provide us simple emails subscriptions and de-emphasize the glitzy rss feeds that handle everything including podcasts (another technology that I've not yet gotten involved with).

5. Promotion. It would be nice if there was more automated pinging built into the blogs. Or, if there is more than I am aware of, more documentation on them. I tend to update my content and then to manually use:
www.pingomatic.com
www.pingoat.com
www.pingmyblog.com
www.autopinger.com
www.kping.com
But I can't tell if my efforts are useful or wasted. I do know that if I correctly join and participate in the blog communities, I do well.