Blogging Tips with Francis Alaeto

What is a blog?

If you have read my previous article titled a little history about blog and blogging, you would remember I promised to write on the definition of  blog myself, instead of merely providing a link to any site that has good definition on it and the reason being that a lot has changed about how people blog and how blogs are perceived.

However, I latter decided that it will help our understanding of what blog is if we take a look at how blog has been defined by other top site.

Today, We shall be looking at the reason why some of the definitions on blog does not necessary hold.

Now, let take a look at just two of such definitions:

1) A mere tool that makes web publishing easy.

Like most people out there I didn’t know what a blog actually was, I used to think of a blog as the host or tool used in creating or putting up a post (website). For instance, if you used Blogger or LiveJournal as your host, or you use a Movable Type Software like Wordpress then I called that a blog.

But how wrong I was.

Like you already know blogs represent a social phenomenon, therefore it keeps evolving, just as things are general changing on the internet.

Gone are the days when you just have to settle for the words “blogspot” or “wordpress” or any other application as part of your URL. Rather you could choose to register any domain name of your choice and have your blog hosted under it or as another page on your main website.

Today, some of these web publishing applications are getting more sophisticated and is changing the way people blog and this is likely to continue as long as there are continuous improvement on these applications.

Many are already using some of these applications to publish complex and sophisticated websites.

For instance, in many parts of the world we have individuals, companies and business that have incorporated blogs to their site. Just take a look at entrepreneur.com.

With this, we now have companies that uses blogs to communicate and relate with their customers, stake holders, prospects and at times with their staffs.

There are other companies, business and organizations even individual site whose main site is a blog. They simply had the blog customized as their main site.

For examples – internetmarketingnigeria, fyiscreening, landreport, itsupportjournal.

Just take a look at those sites, if you are not told that they are all blogs that have been customized, you might never get to know.

The number one reason I love this approach is how easy and convenience publishing content could be.

2) A personal online journal or diary that is updated frequently.

With definitions such as this people tend to think of a blog as online journal where they could share anything that is of interest to them and their readers. Such as their opinions, passion, hobbies, …personal events.

But this is just one way to use a blog

It would as well go for business purpose as I earlier mention. “business blog”.

As time went by and I got to understand more about blogs, I soon came to another kind of conclusion, guess what it was this time …that blogs were actually not different from normal websites.

But, I was still wrong …Why???

Because, unlike a normal website (which takes you through stress -coding), blog is a living entity and is ever changing with the rhythm of its community.

There is so much advantage that comes with a blog that I can not possible cover in this article.

You see, am very sorry if am making the whole thing look complex. However the truth is, if you get it wrong at this point, you will end up limiting what you could be doing with your blog.

This is why I have taking the time to write this.

Finally, you don’t have to wait to be a web designer or an expert at PHP or CSS. That is not the reason why am sharing this with you. You just have to get started but bear in mind that your blog is only going to become what you want it to be.

This is just the beginning!

What is a blog? Before I give my working definition of what a blog is, let’s take a look at how blog has been defined by other top site. This will surely help your understanding of blogs.

…Here are a few definitions by other top site.

Blogger definition;
A blog is a personal diary. A daily pulpit. A collaborative space. A political soapbox. A breaking-news outlet. A collection of links. Your own private thoughts. Memos to the world.

Your blog is whatever you want it to be. There are millions of them, in all shapes and sizes, and there are no real rules.

In simple terms, a blog is a web site, where you write stuff on an ongoing basis. New stuff shows up at the top, so your visitors can read what’s new. Then they comment on it or link to it or email you. Or not.

As defined by wordpress;
“Blog” is an abbreviated version of “weblog,” which is a term used to describe web sites that maintain an ongoing chronicle of information. A blog is a frequently updated, personal website featuring diary-type commentary and links to articles on other Web sites. Blogs range from the personal to the political, and can focus on one narrow subject or a whole range of subjects.

According to wikipedia;
A blog (a contraction of the term “Web log”) is a Web site, usually maintained by an individual, with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. “Blog” can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs.

Matisse.net definition;
A blog is basically a journal that is available on the web. The activity of updating a blog is “blogging” and someone who keeps a blog is a “blogger.” Blogs are typically updated daily using software that allows people with little or no technical background to update and maintain the blog. Postings on a blog are almost always arranged in chronological order with the most recent additions featured most prominently.

Here are another set of definitions from marketingprofs.

“Blogging Is…

1. A form of unedited, authentic self-expression
2. An instant publishing tool
3. An online journal with freshly updated content
4. Amateur journalism
5. Something that will revolutionize the Web (think RSS feeds)
6. A way to create community with your voters, er… readers (think 2,200 comments posted to the Dean for America blog in one day) …”

To read more visit, Top 20 Definitions of Blogging.

Finally, a blog has traditionally been a journal or diary with dated entries, made available on the Internet by any individual or group of individuals.

Although, the above definations are true characteristics of a blog. We can not completely leave it at that. Why? Like I said in my previous article, things change fast in our world, blogs are no exceptions. Find out more about this changing phenomenon in my next article.

Hello and a hearty welcome to you my dear friend and reader. In the coming weeks and months, you will be reading a lot about blog and blogging from me. But before I get started with that I thought it might be better I started with a little history before diving into further explanation on the entire concept behind blogging.

Though it might sound surprising to you but it is a fact that a lot of Internet users and blog owners do not have a good understanding of what a “blog” is. Before I go on to explain all that in my next article, I want you to know that you are looking at a blog and you can start a blog right after reading this article.

Wait a minutes, did I say you are looking at a blog and that you can start one right after reading this article. Sorry I meant to say you can start one right away and am dead Serious. All you need do now is go to any of the blog publishing platform such as Blogger, Open Diary, Wordpress, LiveJournal. Follow the instructions on their site and you will have your blog up in just a few minutes.

That simple …But before you do that I will advice you read through this article.

Most blogs are maintained by people who know little to nothing about website design or development. I am one of such people, if not that I started paying some attention to it recently and from the look of things, I don’t think am going to be giving it all the attention it demands at least not for now. You don’t really have to, unless you are considering becoming a professional web designer.

A lot of definitions on blog and blogging can be found on the internet as well as in most web base books and I would have preferred to just provide a link to any of the site that has actually done justice to the subject in question but I decided to do a proper write up on the definition and meaning of a blog myself.

…Why?

That because the subject in question is a social phenomenon and bearing in mind that this is 2008 and in the next 31 days it will be 2009. It won’t be fine to leave it to past definitions knowing that things change fast in our world and with the internet it’s even faster. So I will advice you watch out for the article.

Here in Nigeria, blog and blogging is just becoming popular though it is already a huge Internet phenomenon with other parts of the world. I think we will catch up, if we jump at it with a good knowledge of what it is and what we can do with it.

Enough of all this talk…let go straight to the purpose of today’s article.

A little history about blog and blogging.
I am not a good student of “the four walls system” not to talk of being good at history. So I am only going to tell you what you just need to know and save my time and yours from all the details.

Blog and blogging gained popularity somewhere within the late 1990s, back before then creating websites wasn’t easy. You need to have knowledge of HTML (a coding language which stands for HyperText Markup Language) before you can have a website up. We don’t actually see these codes when viewing a website.

This might sound a little technical especially if you no little to nothing on blog and website design. But don’t even let it bother you, I will try and make you catch up as fast as possible. For instance, this web page you are viewing or reading at the moment was made possible with the aid of HTML code. I am going to briefly explain that below.

Take a look at your Web browser’s menu,  click on view, within the drop down menu it will presents to you, look for an item that is either written as “view page source” or “page source” or anything close to that depending on your Web browser, click on it and you will see what codes look like. This is what actually defines how every Web page looks and how it interacts with every other web page. Without these codes I don’t know whatelse would have been done to make the World Wide Web a reality.

Hope you got that?

Now, imagine you will have to learn how to code before you can actually put up any site, you might not just be willing to go through the learning process and that might hinder you from putting up a site and if you must, your only option would be to pay someone who knows how the web works to do the job for you.

Although, HTML code is not the most difficult coding language, I personally find the whole coding thing to be time and energy consuming and this is likewise true for many others. Like I said before, publishing website before the late 1990s was left for people who were very tech-savvy but all that is history today.  Thanks to the early programmers who made it possible .

With available tools like Blogger and Wordpress, you can go on to publish a Website (blog), just by filling the blank field provide by any of these web publishing platform. Rather than having to code each page, you would just write what you want published by filling the blank field for the title and body, after which you hit publish, the software would simply do the rest.

What used to take a lot of money, time and energy can now be done within minutes with less stress and with little or no investment.

So far, so good that is the little I think I can share with you but if you choose to know more than what is written here on the history of blogs, you can as well Google it and read as much as you want.

Stay motivated and keep blogging.