Beginning Blogging
posted in web 2.0, social tools, blogs |Since this is a blog, I thought I might as well begin at the beginning of my journey into web information services by reflecting upon my current knowledge about some aspects of blogging as well as my current lack of knowledge about other aspects of blogging. So here are some of my thoughts on the information communication tool on the web known as a blog…
A definition and delineation is always a good place to begin when thinking about something. What is a blog and what is it not? A blog is a web site that contains a person’s online personal journal replete with his or her reflections, and/or anything else they care to share with the web community. A blog is interactive and dynamic. Blogs frequently contain comments (feedback or conversations) by other bloggers or blog readers as well as hyperlinks to other resources that the blog writer deems to be of interest. For novice bloggers and/or those who are reticent to venture into blogging, the thought of putting one’s thoughts out there publicly can be quite intimidating (or maybe that’s just me). A blog may be (depending on how the privacy settings are managed) but is not designed to be kept entirely to oneself.
Thus, the easy part is defining the blog, and the slightly more difficult (but still utterly manageable) part is beginning to blog. How does one get from a blank blog page to a page filled with sagacious reflections and other tidbits that others want to read? I guess just begin typing…
As for the mechanics of beginning to blog, one must first decide whether to get some blogging software and host a blog or to sign up at some blog hosting site on the web. Being a beginning blogger, I thought the latter sounded more appealing, but oh how to choose which blog hosting site to go with (other than of course the essential factor of their offering some sort of free membership option).
To assist me in my oh-so-important blog hosting decision, I visited a few sites such as About.com’s Blog Software and Hosting Page. In the end (after considering every blog hosting service known to mankind and almost being won over by LiveJournal), I decided initially to go with WordPress.com as the host of my blog. It seemed to be easily navigable and had a free membership option and that was good enough for me. I’ve since transferred over to WordPress.org which is perfectly suited for downloading the software and hosting the blog on one’s own server space.
