Blogs, blogs and more blogs

Everywhere you turn people are talking about blogs. Blogs are online diaries or journals that individuals write and post online. They are exploding in number (literally, about 10,000 a day are being created) because they are so easy to develop and maintain. You can go to www.blogger.com (a product of Google) or www.wordpress.com (the source for this blog) and create your own journal. Both are free and take just minutes to set up. I tried both and found wordpress more intuitive and easier to manage.

Blogs are different from websites for several reasons:

1) You can post a message and other people can comment on it, creating a two-way conversation instead of a brochure;

2) Blogs have lists of other sites on the side called a blogroll. These are other websites that the blogger likes and wants you to try. Think of how different that is from an old media company, like, say, CNN, that wants to keep you captive on their site only. Bloggers now know that it’s a great big network out there of people connecting and sharing with one another.

Try blogging — it’s fun and easy!

Step-by-Step
1. Click on www.wordpress.com
2. Click on blue box in upper right, “Create A WordPress Blog Now”
3. Type in a user name (you will use this to log in later, it’s not for public eyes) and your email address (don’t fake the address, you have to email them back to activate the account), and click on terms of service (we’re in big trouble if these things ever say anything serious!) and click on Gimmie a Blog!
4. Reply to the email that you will get shortly.
5. Log in using your user name and passcode.
6. Start by clicking on “Options.” Here you will fill out the basics of your blog, what you want the title on top to be, and a tag line beneath that if you want one. Check on the membership box, this will make sure that people are commenting on your blog, not spammers adding a lot of junk to the comment boxes. Make sure that the dates and times below read the way that you want them to for your future postings. Then click “Update Options” in the bottom right and your blog is ready to go.
7. Next click on “Presentation” to choose a template (a graphic design) for your site. You can pick a template and then click on “View Site” at the top next to your blog title to take a peek at how the new design looks quickly. You can change design templates any time that you want, so this is not a be all and end all decision.
8. Now you’re ready to post a message to your blog. Click on “Write” on the tool bar beneath your blog title at the top. Now you can type your message. Make sure to proof the spelling, there isn’t any spell check on WordPress. You can stop writing at any time and save your message to come back to it later. When you’re ready to let the world see your message, click on “Publish” below the test box and, presto!, your first blog entry has been uploaded to wordpress.
9. You can begin to play with categories, different folders you can save your posts to for easy finding later, and you can click on “Manage” and edit blog posts that haven’t been published, or edit old ones, or delete them.

That’s it, you’re officially a “citizen journalist” now!