Blogging
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Contents
Introduction
Blog
is short for web-log. A blog consists of a series of postings typically organised in reverse chronological order, but which can also be organised by topic. A blog is an excellent forum for communication of news, information, and issues. Comments by readers can be enabled, making blogging interactive.
Blogging has created a major cultural change. Prior to blogging, the ability to publicly report news and commentary was restricted to a privileged few - media owners, editors and producers. Blogging has broken that privilege and allows anyone to report and comment. While the means of production have been democratised, bloggers still need to find an audience.
While blogging is text based primarily, it can be expanded to other forms. Examples include photographs and other images on sites like Flickr (a Yahoo company) and videos on sites like YouTube (a Google company).
Most blogging platforms allow the author to choose if the blog is to be made available to the public, available to invited readers only or private. Authors can also choose whether readers are allowed to make comments. Comment permissions can be set to allow anonymous comments or to restrict comments to be readers who identify themselves.
Uses of Blogs
The uses to which blogs can be put are many and varied. Each author is free to use the blog for whatever purpose they desire. Some examples of uses include:
- Commenting on news events
- Providing a news service on a very specialised topic - for example on your sporting club
- Updating friends and family about your activities
- Keeping a journal
- Keeping a reflective journal
Advantages of Blogging
Blogs offer three key advantages over keeping a paper journal:
- A blog can be easily shared with others.
- A blog can be accessed from any computer terminal - you do not have to carry your journal with you
- The blog is backed-up by the company providing the service which reduces the risk of you losing your journal. Also, your little brother/sister cannot find it in your room and read it without your permission (as long as you remember to log off).
Risks of Blogging
There are a number of risks inherent in blogging:
- If you make your blog open to the public it can be read by employers and others with the potential to harm you giving them information about yourself that you do not wish them to know.
- Any personal information you provide through your blog may assist criminals to steal your identity.
- If you make defamatory remarks in your blog, you may be sued.
- The blogging company has information about you even if you make your blog private which they may use to profile you for advertising.
Try it out
There are many ways to create a free blog site, e.g.,
Microblogging
Microblogging is like a normal blog but each entry's length is restricted to a sentence or two. The best known mircoblogging platform is Twitter. Given the length restriction, microblogs are not as useful for providing detailed commentary but they are useful for providing updates on your activities. Twitter's usefulness is enhanced due to its ability to send new entries to readers via SMS text message, to be incorporated into Facebook and other social networking sites, and through showing a notification message on Firefox (need to download the twitter add-on for Firefox).
Video
- There is no Common Craft video on blogging
Resources
See also
- [What are Blogs?] (Knowledge Sharing and Communication using the Internet 2008)
