August 25, 2004 Blogs, short for weblog, are the latest mini-revolution in the Information Age. Little known to the public just one year ago, blogging is now creeping its way into cocktail party conversations.
What are blogs? Well, it depends who you’re asking. To the young, a blog is a digital diary of angst and rants kept by attention-starved teenagers who spend every waking moment on the Internet. To slightly older but no less attention-hungry individuals, blogging is a more reflective endeavor where one chronicles daily musings for the voyeuristic benefit of others. To the information consumer, blogs are the most modern means for news sites to package and ship stories.
According to Bloglines.com, a free, online blog account provider, blogs let you “manage lots of web information, such as news feeds, weblogs and audio.”
The essence of a blog is akin to a news aggregator, like the AP Wire.
Here’s how it works. You, the curious blog newcomer, sign up for an account. With a subscription—some providers vary—you’re able to choose both commercial and private blog feeds. Each day the blog feed, for example, The New York Times (yes, they serve a blog), ships its top stories right to your blog inbox.
You can get feeds from any source that ships blog-ready content. Gone are the days of visiting a half-dozen websites to get the daily headlines. Just check your feeds each morning and click the stories you want to read.
Most blog account providers allow you to create your own blog space. You, too, can keep a blog that the world can read. Just imagine the possibilities.
How can you spot a blog-friendly site? Look for XML or RSS icons on a site’s homepage. Then, copy and paste the link location into your blog feed listing. That’s it. There forward, you’ll get the latest stories from that site every day in your blog account.
Are you ready to blog?
Examples of RSS readers include: Bloglines, a web-based reader; Net News Wire Lite, for Mac OS X users, and Feed Reader, for Windows.
For more information, check the RSS Primer for Educators or, for in-depth technical coverage, the RSS 2.0 Specification.
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