Unpacked: A Walker Returns Home

Hi everyone,

First off, a soundtrack with which to accompany unpacking the week:

Click here, and you will open up a new window and the The Wailin Jennys My Space page, from where you can listen to music as lovely as any I’ve heard. If the Jennys are yet unknown to you, give ‘em a hear- if you are a sucker for pretty things like me, I dare say they will not disappoint.

In the previous post, Blogging: And Humanity Breathes a Sigh of Relief, I discussed my experiences in the blogosphere, the world of blogging.

Through a brief exchange with my aunt Judy, I realized I might have been assuming a lot about what people know of blogs. So the following is just some blogging background, what makes blogs unique, why they are different from regular websites, and how to search them out. Hope you find it useful!

The name “blog” comes from the word “weblog.” Blogs function just like logs (journal-logs, not tree-logs)- They are updated often, and classically have a journal-like, personal feel.

Blogging technology software is such that unlike standard websites, blogs are easily installed, easily managed, and easily updated. They are therefore conducive to:

1-Simple and continuous communication

2-Non-technologically inclined people (like me)

Tack on the fact that the technology allows for easy commenting by readers, and blogging is the perfect channel through which non-programmers can publish the content of their choice, communicate their own expertise and converse with others.

It’s pretty amazing, but professional news services and media actually consult- and reference- popular blogs for information and opinions. Most news sites have blogs to complement their more formal services. Backpacker.com has bloggers who report from the trail, sports sites list blogs managed by top fans and political candidates blog to connect with voters. (I first heard of blogs when I did a paper four years ago on Howard Dean. Remember him?).

If I have a hobby of of, say, making my own goat cheese, I can create GoatBlogger and share my knowledge with the world without having to pay for a printed newsletter. After establishing authority, I can even advertise goat cheese products. With relative technological ease, GoatBlogger would include exclusive interviews with the industry’s top cheese-producing goats, as well as goat-kid interviews on what it’s like to grow up with the unique destiny to make cheese.

The beauty of it, is that even if the goats already have a blog of their own, called, for example, The Goat Life (.com), Goat Life and Goat Blogger can refer to each others’ blogs, and help to market one another. And goat and man will be one. See what I mean? Miraculous indeed.

While I let GoatBlogger and the editors of Goat Life bask in their new cooperative, lucrative relationship, I will say that what I hear in blogs, is a communications reality that shaves off formalities, and facilitates the sharing of real substance.

Practically speaking, finding blogs on specific topics is as easy as searching the topic and the word “blog.” Search engines like Google rank pages, among other things, on visits per day and referrals from other sites (called “back-links”), so you can be sure that the top ranking sites (the first that come up in the search results) are of socially-proven quality.

If you are a little adventurous, you can check out the site www.technorati.com, which acts as a library/search engine specifically for blogs and blog-like sites.

Blogging lingo and sites and technology are almost endless. For now, I will suffice to say that I am having a heck of a time learning about the Blogosphere. When it comes to blogging, I am constantly fluctuating between the intimidation of having so much more to learn, and being wildly surprised by what people are capable of when given the opportunity.

Enjoy the week and the day and the hour,

Happy Unpacking,

Yannai

Did you find this information helpful? I’d love to hear from you! Do you have any great blogging stories/fun-facts? Are you subscribed to any great blogs? Did you enjoy The Wailin’ Jennys? Your comments are super welcome and appreciated! (Goats can comment, too, by the way).

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Tags: Blogging, Goats, Unpacking the Week

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 17th, 2008 at 12:24 pm and is filed under Blogging, Unpacking the Week. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.