A Basic Guide to Power Blogging

Blogs (web logs, online journals) are nearly mandatory now. From presidential candidates and CEOs to avid hobbyists and local clubs, blogs are being used to share ideas and opinions. As the next new communications/community building/marketing tool beyond conventional web sites, blogs offer a more dynamic, timely, and personal interactive experience. Join over 4 million other bloggers by following these easy steps to Power Blogging.

Streight, Steven. Blogger.com (2004). Articles>Publishing>Online>Blogging

Blogs on the Side

Blogging as a trend has gained enormous popularity with the simplification of automated self-publishing systems, such as Blogger at www.blogger.com, or MT at www.moveabletype.org. Blogging as a way of life is also gathering adherents at a rapid pace.

Young, Lisa. MetroVoice (2003). Articles>Publishing>Online>Blogging

How to Get Your Blog Mentioned in the Society for Technical Communication's Intercom: Include the Word "Technical Communicator"

The keywords that set off the Intercom editor's Google Alert no doubt included technical communicator, technical writer, technical communication, and Society for Technical Communication.

Johnson, Tom H. I'd Rather Be Writing (2008). Articles>Publishing>Online>Blogging

Personal Publication and Public Attention

What makes weblogs a genre different from the autobiography, the diary, the researcher's journal or any other pre-Internet writing? While weblogs have many non-digital predecessors, blogs cannot live outside of the computer. They are ergodic texts (Aarseth 1997), and demand the assistance of technology in order to be created and used.

Mortensen, Torill Elvira. Into the Blogosphere (2004). Articles>Publishing>Online>Blogging

Weblogs as a Bridging Genre    

Weblogs (blogs)--frequently modified web pages in which dated entries are listed in reverse chronological sequence--are the latest genre of Internet communication to attain widespread popularity, yet their characteristics have not been systematically described. This paper presents the results of a quantitative content analysis of 203 randomly-selected weblogs, comparing the empirically observable features of the corpus with popular claims about the nature of weblogs, and finding them to differ in a number of respects. Notably, blog authors, journalists and scholars alike exaggerate the extent to which blogs are interlinked, interactive, and oriented towards external events, and underestimate the importance of blogs as individualistic, intimate forms of self-expression. Based on the profile generated by the empirical analysis, we consider the likely antecedents of the blog genre, situate it with respect to the dominant forms of digital communication on the Internet today, and suggest possible developments of the use of weblogs over time in responsgenres.

Herring, Susan C., Scheidt, Lois Ann, Wright, Elijah, and Bonus, Sabrina. Information, Technology and People (2005). Articles>Publishing>Online>Blogging

What the Blazes Is a Blog?  

'Blogs,' or Web logs, are the newest form of one-way and interactive online communication to hit the Internet. Most people would agree that a 'blog' is a regularly updated set of Web pages with a chronological set of thoughts and links. Starting around 1999, the blog movement has gained so much momentum that hundreds of thousands of Web logs and many different styles of blog now exist.

Archee, Raymond K. Intercom (2003). Articles>Web Design>Publishing>Blogging

Search Engine Optimize Your Blog Posts to Increase Your Readership

When you search-engine-optimize your blog posts, you can increase your blog’s subscribers in a long-term way. You don’t have to stiffen your prose to apply search engine optimization — you just have to apply keywords in the right places.

Johnson, Tom H. I'd Rather Be Writing (2008). Articles>Publishing>Search Engine Optimization>Blogging

The Real State of The Blogosphere 2008

A few weeks ago Technorati came out with their annual State of the Blogosphere 2008 numbers. They revealed that 133 million blogs have been setup since January 2002. That means, on average, over 72,000 blogs have been setup every day since the blogging phenomena started. Staggering numbers!

SubHub (2008). Articles>Publishing>Online>Blogging

Weblogs and the Mass Amateurization of Publishing

A lot of people in the weblog world are asking "How can we make money doing this?" The answer is that most of us can't. Weblogs are not a new kind of publishing that requires a new system of financial reward. Instead, weblogs mark a radical break. They are such an efficient tool for distributing the written word that they make publishing a financially worthless activity. It's intuitively appealing to believe that by making the connection between writer and reader more direct, weblogs will improve the environment for direct payments as well, but the opposite is true. By removing the barriers to publishing, weblogs ensure that the few people who earn anything from their weblogs will make their money indirectly.

Shirky, Clay. Shirky.com (2002). Articles>Publishing>Online>Blogging

Blogging, Podcasting, and Screencasting: Eight Characteristics to Attract Devoted Followers (Part II)

Devoted followers stay updated with each new post, podcast, or screencast, eagerly awaiting the next new one. They’re intimately familiar with your content and either comment regularly or regularly return to your site.

Johnson, Tom H. Tech Writer Voices (2009). Articles>Publishing>Blogging>Podcasting