What's Really Going On With the Blogosphere?  

Explores the notion of the blogosphere by using recent studies to soberly refocus the actual size of the blogosphere and the extent of the blogging phenomenon.

Vieta, Marcelo. Digest (2003). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Blogging

Why I Hate Weblogs!

There are, I'm sure, as many reasons to keep weblogs as there are weblogs authors, however, some common threads surely exist between them. What could motivate someone to keep a public journal of their innermost thoughts? What possible reasons would someone have?

Indiana State University (2002). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Blogging

Women and Children Last: The Discursive Construction of Weblogs

As yet there has been little empirical examination of the claim that blogs are 'democratic,' or that blog authors represent diverse demographic groups.

Herring, Susan C., Inna Kouper, Lois Ann Scheidt and Elijah L. Wright. Into the Blogosphere (2004). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Blogging

The Year of the Blog: Weblogs in the Writing Classroom

While blogs (short for 'weblogs') have been around since at least 1993, something in the stars and planets has just now come into alignment, making blogs rise above the horizon of notice.

Computers and Composition (2004). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Blogging

"Self-Googling" Isn't Just Vanity; It's a Shrewd Form of Personal "Brand Management," Says UB Internet-Culture Expert

"Self-Googling" -- searching for your own name on the popular Google search engine -- may seem like an innocuous act of vanity, but a University at Buffalo communications professor recommends it as a shrewd form of "personal brand management" in the digital age.

DellaContrada, John. SUNY Buffalo (2004). Articles>Web Design>Marketing>Blogging

How to Make Your Blog Accessible to Blind Readers

So you have a blog, and you're worried that it might not be accessible to people with disabilities? Don't worry! A few simple changes can increase your blog's potential readership.

American Foundation for the Blind (2006). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Blogging

Does Twitter Fit into Your Branding Strategy?

Twitter, often referred to as the water cooler of the Internet, teaches us the art of brevity by limiting communication to 140 characters or less. But unless you can compress instructional content in ingenious ways, you’ll find Twitter limiting as a method for delivering documentation. Instead, Twitter is better used for the following: eavesdropping on customer conversations; putting a personal face on your company; and increasing the reach of your announcements.

Johnson, Tom H. I'd Rather Be Writing (2008). Articles>Web Design>Marketing>Blogging

Dawn of the Twitter Effect

Yesterday a Twitter post (a tweet) by Mashable’s Pete Cashmore became so popular that traffic from Twitter crashed a blog. This sounds very similar to a common social media phenomenon originally known as the Slashdot effect (and later also the Digg effect), where a post on a popular social media site pushes more traffic than the target site can handle. An interesting thing here is the mechanics of Twitter, which is fundamentally different from Digg and Slashdot. It’s not a social news site, with a front page that all visitors go to.

Pingdom (2009). Articles>Web Design>Blogging>Social Networking

Don't Waste Money On A Business Blog

Don't waste your money on a business blog (unless search engine marketing is an important piece of your overall marketing efforts and you're going to invest the time and effort into making it work).

Jehring, Ben. SmallBox (2009). Articles>Web Design>Business Communication>Blogging

The Coming Facebook-Twitter Collision

Forget about rivalries with MySpace and LinkedIn. Facebook's real competition is coming from upstart microblogging site Twitter.

Lacy, Sarah. BusinessWeek (2009). Articles>Web Design>Blogging>Social Networking

It’s Time to Shoot Your Blog

The question is, what happens when your blog stops working? When your car quits, you take it to the junk yard. When your horse quits, you shoot it out of mercy. What are you supposed to do when your blog stops spreading your ideas? Simple. You do what thousands of bloggers do every day: You quit.

Morrow, Jonathan. Copyblogger (2009). Articles>Web Design>Blogging

Non-UX Designers Can Pay Attention to User Experience Too!

Concepts, principals, and parts of User Experience Design can often times be difficult to approach—and this tends to create barriers with new bloggers. This begs the question: Do ordinary bloggers have to worry about UX Design?

Leggett, David. Fuel Your Blogging (2009). Articles>Web Design>User Experience>Blogging

The Seven Sins of Blogging, Sin #6, Being Unfindable

How can you enable readers to naturally find the content in your archives? How can you make the hundreds of posts you write more visible and prominent, especially if readers are looking for it? This is partly what the field of findability is all about. You can implement several easy aggregation techniques to increase the findability of your content. You can add tags and categories to your posts, and readers can navigate your content this way.

Johnson, Tom H. I'd Rather Be Writing (2009). Articles>Web Design>Blogging>Search Engine Optimization

The Seven Deadly Sins of Blogging: Sin 7, Being Inattentive

One appealing aspect of blogs over print media is the ability to comment and respond to comments. It’s the appeal of a conversation instead a lecture.

Johnson, Tom H. I'd Rather Be Writing (2009). Articles>Web Design>Blogging>Collaboration