10 posts tagged “blog”

In this article, the author suggests that for an unpublished writer, a blog is a good place to post the first draft of a book. The author lists seven reasons why this is a good idea. It was an interesting read and it gave me food for thought, but I'm not sure I agree. Still, it's certainly something to consider.

What do you think? Is it worth a try? Bad idea? What? Tell me what you think.

Apparently, microblogging is getting more and more popular these days. As far as I can tell, the theory behind it is that people are busy, they don't have time to sit down and write a long blog post. In a way, that makes sense. On the other hand, who says you need to blog ten times a day? A while back I read about some people doing 'slow blogging' - quality blogging, not quanity. That too, makes sense.

Being the sad, lonely misfit that I am, I don't have that much to say, when it comes to 'what are you doing?'. If I were to really microblog, it would be mainly things like 'I'm sitting here at the computer' 'Just got back from a walk', 'Had dinner. It was delicious'. Boring. Pathetic.

That reminds me of an even newer thing - nanoblogging. One word at a time. Brilliant? Trendy? Cool? Poetic? Maybe, but pretentious and snobbish are words that spring to mind. Meaningless too. In my book. But maybe it's something you get used to.

All this hasn't stopped me from getting no fewer than five (I think) microblogs (not nanoblogs) and I'm doing my best to keep up. At least I will, as long as it feels fun.

What do you think? Should I give nanoblogging a chance too? Here is a nanoblog site (I haven't tried it but I found it when I did a Dogpile search.

I just thought I'd mention that now I've I got a Vox blog all in Swedish. If you're interested in learning/practicing Swedish, you're welcome to check it out. You'll find it here.

Now that I've tried Soup, I can say that for me it works like a cooler version of FriendFeed (or Multiply - but without the annoying ads). It collects posts from other sites, which can be convenient if you have friends and family who would like to keep up with what you're doing. Of course, it's also possible to use it like any tumblelog. I haven't had mine for long, but I'll keep exploring it and see what else it can do.

Tumblr (for me) is a great 'scrapbook' - in my case a photoblog (though like I mentioned before, I also like to post links and other shorter entries). To be honest, it took me a while to figure out how to use it, but when I did, I fell in love with it. It's so - creative and do-it-yourself, compared to more evolved blogging platforms like WordPress or LiveJournal. I still haven't tried Publr or Plurk. In fact, I still haven't figured out exactly what Plurk is and what use I might have for it, if any. 

I recently read a blog post about what microblogging is. It mentioned Twitter and Jaiku. From what I've read, those belong to one type of microblog. There's at least one other type, the tumblelog. A tumblelog is sort of a scrapbook, where 'ordinary' blogs are diaries/journals or even a sort of homepage (which in itself can be a lot of things, for instance a sort of business card).

I have a tumblelog on Tumblr, which I use mainly as a photoblog, but where I also post links and other shorter posts that I wouldn't put on a 'traditional' blog. There are also others of roughly the same type, like Publr and Plurk (which is also a kind of social network, but then so are all to some extent). There's also something called Soup, which is more or less a similar thing.

If anyone's interested, you'll find my Tumblr here.

Some of you might be wondering where my reviews went. It's very simple, I decided to put them in a separate blog. You'll find them here. Hopefully, there'll be more later.

Some of you might be wondering where my reviews went. It's very simple, I decided to put them in a separate blog. You'll find them here. Hopefully, there'll be more later.

Next lesson in my computer/internet school. This time I thought I'd cover blogging sites. When I first heard of blogging it seemed alien to me. Then I tried it and couldn't make it work, but eventually, I got the bug. Now I can't imagine not blogging when I feel inspired. Of course, blogging requires a blog site, or software and a website and most of all a blog platform.

My favorite blog platform is WordPress. Yay! I absolutely adore WordPress. WordPress.org and WordPress.com.

The difference is that WordPress.com is a sort of web hotel, where you get your WP blog hosted for free. It does mean you get fewer choices in blog themes, plugins, widgets etc. You might also have trouble directing your domain name to your WP blog. Domain name - well, properly that should be covered in a separate post, one about homepages, webspace and, well, domain names. I'm not going to do that though. This is it. Blogs and homepages covered in one single blog post.

The reason for that is that today, most people hardly know what a homepage is and have trouble creating one. Even as late as a year ago, I was stubbornly sticking to my homepage and wanted to program it myself, using an editor, naturally. I'm not that good with html programming. Then it hit me - why should I do all the ground work, when my 'thing' is writing, primarily, and to some extent, photography?

I have come to the conclusion, that while I would love to make a blog theme 100 % as I like it, there are so many themes out there, that I can be pretty content with one someone else made.

Anyway, back to the domain name. It doesn't have to be that expensive, if you want one. There's no reason why you should need one, but if you do want one, it's easy to get and won't cost you too much. Unfortunately, there's a catch. When isn't there? It could be a bit tricky, configuring it. I'm afraid I can't help you there, but there should be help available online.

You can also get a domain name for free. It won't be a 'real' domain name, but it will shorten your URL and make it easier to remember. Uni.cc and cjb.net are the ones I've tried. Both work fine.

For a homepage, you'll need webspace and if you don't mind ads, you can get some for free. If not, there should be web hotels that have reasonable prices. My family and I are lucky enough to have found one that doesn't charge much but offers a lot of space.

You'll also need a web editor. There are some available online for free. I can't tell you how good they are, because I haven't tried them, but I've been told they're quite good. Finally, you'll need an ftp program, unless your webspace offers a web based file upload option.

Let's get back to blogging. You'll still need webspace if you decide to get your blog software from WordPress.org and if you like, a domain name. The upside is you get to choose any theme you like and you can get plugins and widgets.

The main advantage of both WP types is the ease of updating, editing etc. It's a breeze compared to editing in a web editor. That's why I decided in favor of a blog, rather than an old-fashioned homepage. 

Just to let any Swedish-speakers or other Scandinavians among my readers know, I just deleted all my posts in Swedish. If you'd prefer to read my blog in Swedish, you'll find it on the following sites:

Vox (LOL)
My Homepage/Blog
Myblogg
Wb
Bloggsida
Bloggagratis

A part of the revolution (and evolution). It feels a little like that. One little link in the long chain since the the art of writing was invented in Mesopotamia maybe five thousand years ago.

In an article that I read recently it says that the blog - the one you're reading now is just one example among many - is a part of the evolution since Gutenberg invented the printing process. So - you and I and everyone else are a stage of the evolution.

In this article there was also something really interesting about how this collective way of expressing oneself will affect our 'collective brain' and society.

Really fascinating and we - you and I and all other bloggers - are a part of the revolution. We are watching history being made.

Once upon a time, printed books were viewed as a threat against high culture. Today the internet might be perceived as more of a threat than an asset. Others don't 'believe' in the blog. But if the spies don't win, if the greedy money grabbers are allowed to win, then maybe five hundred years from now, we'll look back on the breakthrough for the internet as a new phase in cultural history and blogging as a part of journalism, as important as perspective in art, recorded music, literature in the form of printed books or printed newspapers.

Not so long ago, you couldn't find out about current affairs and incidents that might have occurred, by opening your paper in the morning. People didn't know what a paper was. Nowadays you can get news in many different forms, but back then you had to be grateful if you could hear about something, orally, from someone who had been present and seen what was going on.

It's easy to forget that a blog isn't just a cool kind of homepage, where you can post photos of yourself or post quizzes with images.

Think about the crisis in Burma - the blog was one of the most important ways of communicating with the outside world. That might give you another view of blogging. The medium is certainly versatile and important.

Long live the blog!