Blog Basics

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. It is whatever you want it to be. There are millions of blogs and no real rules.

A blog is a web site where you write stuff on an ongoing basis. New stuff shows up at the top, so visitors can read what's new. Then they comment on it or link to it or email you (or not). A blog is a place to collect and share things you find interesting - political commentary, a personal diary, or links to web sites.

Some people use a blog to organize personal thoughts; others command influential, worldwide audiences of thousands. Professional and amateur journalists use blogs to publish breaking news, while personal journalers reveal inner thoughts.

The blogging experience is also hearing back from and connecting with like-minded folks. Comments let readers give feedback on what you share on your blog. You can choose whether or not you want to allow comments on a post-by-post basis (and you can delete anything you don't like). If you have comments enabled on your blog, there is a "comments" link at the end of each post that takes you to a comment-posting page. The owner of the blog also has the option to have comments open in popup windows.

Group blogs or "team blogs" are for small teams, families, or other groups. Basically, one person creates the blog, then "invites" others to join it.

There are different ways to create a blog, WordPress and Blogger are two of the most popular free services out there.

(Sources incude www.blogger.com)