Weblogs Enable User-Centric Sites

Weblogs give users information from multiple sources in one page.

Bohmann, Kristoffer. Bohmann Usability (2000). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Blogging

Weblogs Revisited: The Phenomenon of Public Digital Journals

Notwithstanding the fact that lexicographers have come up with definitions for blog, if you asked a few dozen bloggers what makes a blog a blog, you would probably get a few dozen answers.

Kissell, Joe. Interesting Thing of the Day (2004). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Blogging

Weblogs, Rhetoric, Community, and Culture

Looking at blogs as rhetorical artifacts allows scholars to examine the ways in which they contribute to changing what it means to communicate online. To this end, the articles presented here view the blog through the lens of their social, cultural, and rhetorical features and functions. Through study of the language, discourse, and communicative practices of bloggers, the authors provide insight into weblogs as a means of representing and expressing the self, forming identity, facilitating student-centered learning, building community, and disseminating information.

Gurak, Laura J., Smiljana Antonijevic, Laurie Johnson, Clancy Ratliff and Jessica Reyman. Into the Blogosphere (2004). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Blogging

Weblogs: A History and Perspective

Rebecca Blood, an early blogger, describes the rise of blogging.

Blood, Rebecca. Adobe (2005). Articles>Web Design>History>Blogging

What Are the Bloggers Saying About You? Practical Tips for Communicators

The influence of bloggers and their readers has erupted into campaigns that have affected large, well-known companies and brands—Wal-Mart, Kryptonite Locks, Land Rover, Sony. Smaller firms could suffer even more, like the New York camera retailer that went out of business. Don't let this happen to your organization.

Papacosta, Donna. Communication World Bulletin (2006). Articles>Business Communication>Public Relations>Blogging

What Makes a Weblog a Weblog?

Assuming a Wiki is a weblog-like system that allows anyone to edit anything (I know some don't) then a Wiki represents an interesting amalgam of many voices, not the unedited voice of a single person.

Winer, Dave. Harvard University (2003). Articles>Web Design>Writing>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

What We're Doing When We Blog

Every day it seems another article about weblogs appears in the press. At first, most of these stories seemed content to cover the personal nature of blogging. But more and more I'm seeing articles that attempt to examine the journalistic and punditry aspects of weblogs prominent in many of the so-called 'warblogs,' or sites that began in response to the events of September 11th

Hourihan, Meg. O'Reilly and Associates (2002). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Blogging

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

Why Software Applications Need Product Blogs, and Why They Don't Get Them

I'm convinced that even internal software, which never sees the light of WWW, still needs a blog as much or more than products sold online. Even so, numerous corporate restrictions, standards, and culture will present seemingly insurmountable barriers to blogs.

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

Wikis, Blogs and Other Community Tools in the Enterprise

Wikis and Web logs (blogs) make a big impact on the Web, but they can also be useful in an enterprise. A community is a group of people with common interests, goals, or responsibilities, such as a project team or an interest group. Combine wikis and blogs with existing collaborative tools to enhance the productivity and effectiveness of enterprise teams.

Farrell, Joel A. IBM (2006). Articles>Writing>Business Communication>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

Writing With Web Logs

In many ways, blogs combine the best elements of portfolio-driven courses, where student work is collected, edited, and assessed, with the immediacy of publishing for a virtual audience.

Kennedy, Kristen. Tech Learning (2004). Articles>Writing>Education>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

You Blog, We Blog: A Guide to How Teacher-Librarians Can Use Weblogs to Build Communication and Research Skills

The global reach of the World Wide Web helps create connections between many people with diverse opinions and interests. This strength, combined with the ease of publishing to the Web when compared to traditional publishing endeavors, and the ability to reach a large audience have fostered a phenomenon known as weblogs.

Embrey, Theresa Ross. Techer Librarian (2002). Articles>Writing>Education>Blogging

You've Got Blog

Blogs often consist of links to articles that readers might otherwise have missed, and thus make for informative reading.

Mead, Rebecca. RebeccaMead.com (2000). Articles>Writing>Online>Blogging

WordPress as a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Application

I'm amazed at how easily people can make sites look both professional and functional in a short period of time using WordPress. Clyde Parson, the STC-Suncoast chapter in Tampa, just redid the Suncoast STC with a new WordPress theme. It looks pretty cool.

Johnson, Tom H. I'd Rather Be Writing (2008). Articles>Content Management>Blogging>WordPress

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

Fifty Beautiful Blog Designs

In the showcase below we present 50 beautiful blog designs that literally stand out — either through their layout or through their design or through their attention to little details. Below you’ll find a variety of designs: clean designs, grunge, retro, graphics-heavy designs etc. Most designs presented below risk unusual approaches in the choice of design and content presentation. That’s what makes them different. Hopefully you will find some creative ideas which you can develop further in your further projects.

Smashing (2008). Design>Web Design>CSS>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

Corporate Blogs: Minefield or Bonanza?

Blogs are the lifeblood of the "social internet" and with around 60 million blogs currently in existence they provide a large proportion of the content available online. This gives them huge potential as a tool for companies to engage with an audience in a way that hasn't really been possible before, but very few businesses seem to be taking advantage of the phenomenon. Why is that?

Oxer, Jonathan. Internet Vision Technologies (2007). Articles>Business Communication>Blogging

Corporate Blogs: Measure Their Value!

To date, ROI hasn't been applied to blogs. This is partly due to blogging recent introduction to the marketing mix. Many blogging experts have suggested calculating a blog ROI is impossible. As a professor, I teach students how to tie marketing to the bottom line. Calculating ROI for a blog should be no harder than calculating it for other marketing components. To place ROI measurements in context, you must first understand how blogs fulfill different business objectives.

Cohen, Heidi. ClickZ (2005). Articles>Business Communication>Blogging>Assessment