WeblogsAn Intro and Tour

October 5, 2002

Who am I?

What’s a weblog?

“frequently updated webpages consisting of dated entries, generally listed in chronological order from the top down”

Paul McCann, KIPlog

What’s a weblog?

A weblog (sometimes called a blog or a newspage or a filter) is a webpage where a weblogger (sometimes called a blogger, or a pre-surfer) 'logs' all the other webpages she finds interesting.

Jorn Barger, Robot Wisdom

What’s a weblog?

A weblog is a coffee house conversation in text, with references as required.

Rebecca Blood, The Weblog Handbook

What’s a weblog?

Weblogs are often-updated sites that point to articles elsewhere on the web, often with comments, and to on-site articles. A weblog is kind of a continual tour, with a human guide who you get to know.

Dave Winer Scripting News

What’s a weblog?

Is there a difference between a Weblog and a Blog?“Also, mark me in the column that recognizes and uses a distinction between a "weblog" and a "blog". To me, the former is links to Internet resources with occasional personal commentary and the latter is the opposite, nearer a diary or journal. There are subtle gradations between the two, naturally.”

Bradley Graham, BradlandsIn a post to Metafilter

What’s in a weblog

A PostA Link

Archives

Links

How many weblogs are there?

“Please note: This page is no longer being updated, as grabbing the data was just sucking down too much of my bandwidth. I'm retaining the last figures here as a bit of weblog history.”

Take these figures with a big lump of salt...Date       Weblogs6/17/2000 1294…2/1/2000 485

Mike Gunderloy, Larkfarm

How many weblogs are there?

Blogger boasts a total registered user base of over 750,000 that grows by approximately 1,500 to 2,000 people per day. UserLand has approximately 50,000 users and grows by 4,000 each month, according to Dave Winer, UserLand president. Its impossible to count the number of Movable Type, Greymatter and other roll-your-own blogs.

What kinds of weblogs are out there?

• Links (Robot Wisdom, Larkfarm)• Topical (FoodBlog, KM, etc.)• Current Events (Political, Warblogs)• Self-expression (Absenter)• Group (MetaFilter, Plastic)• ThinkBlog (AKMA, Wood S Lot)

What kinds of weblogs are out there?

Link driven• Larkfarm• Robot Wisdom• Rebecca’s Pocket

Every post is a link. Although you can determine some things about the blogger’s personality by the links he chooses and the commentary he makes on them, there is very little personal information.

Robot Wisdom - Jorn Barger

Rebecca’s Pocket - Rebecca Blood

What kinds of weblogs are out there?

Topical • Bacon• FoodBlog• You Grow Girl• Catalogblog

These weblogs stick to a topic, usually linking to news or other information on the Web about the subject they cover. Also used to share information and knowledge about that subject that the author has learned offline. Here’s my list of topical weblogs

What kinds of weblogs are out there?

Current Events • Matt Welch• LakeFX• Liberationism• Palestinian• Israeli

These weblogs are heavy on news links and commentary. Commonly with a heavy bias and definite stance or agenda.

Lake Effect - Dan Hartung

What kinds of weblogs are out there?

Group• Metafilter• Blogroots• Thirteen Labs

These weblogs have multiple authors and commonly resemble discussions or conversations. Other topical group blogs offer a valuable source of varied knowledge that can only be had from multiple sources.

MetaFilter

A Post

Comments

Blogroots

What kinds of weblogs are out there?

ThinkBlogs• AKMA• GolubBlog• Reading and Writing• Eclogues

These weblogs tend to have a more literate, thoughtful quality to them. Posts tend to resemble well-thought out essays, rather than quick “what I had for breakfast” lines.

How do you find weblogs?

Weblog Directories and Portals• Eaton web portal• Globe of Blogs• DMOZ

Blog rings• Chicago Bloggers

How do you find weblogs?

Eaton Web Portal• Sorted by category,

language, country, alphabet

• 7182 blogs

How do you find weblogs?

Globe of Blogs• Sorted by title,

topic, age, gender, birthday, name and location

• 1820 weblogs

How do you find weblogs?

DMOZThe Open Directory Project is the largest, most comprehensive human-edited directory of the Web

Top: Computers: Internet: On the Web: Weblogs  (2,945)

How do you find weblogs?

By Relationship with other bloggers• Blogging ecosystem• Blogtree

Other Methods• Blog Birthdays• Thumbnails• Reviews

How do you find weblogs?

By Relationship with other bloggers• Blogtree

How do you find weblogs?

Other Methods

• Blog birthdays

How do you read all these weblogs?

Weblogs.comDaypopBlogdexOther rating systems

• BlogHop!

How do you start your own?

BloggerRadioXangaSalon blogsPitasLiveJournalGrey MatterMovable TypeRoll your own

How do you start your own?What does Blogger do?“Blogger gives you a way to automate (and greatly accelerate) the blog publishing process without writing any code or worrying about installing any sort of server software or scripts. And yet, it still gives you total control over the look and location of your blog.

More specifically, instead of hand-coding your blog posts and frequently uploading the newest version of your page, you make posts to your blog by submitting a simple form on the Blogger web site, and the results immediately show up on your site, with your design.”

How do you start your own?

BloggerRadioXangaSalonPitasLiveJournalGrey MatterMovable TypeRoll your own

How do you start your own?Business Blogs and Blogs for your clientsAnother interesting application of the weblog model would be within corporate intranets. Where I work, much of the company-wide memorandums and communication is done via email, with some emails containing numerous attachments that sometimes weigh in at a hefty one-to-two megabytes. It'd be so much better if these emails only referenced documents somewhere on the intranet instead of including them via attachments. The intranet page for each department could be a regularly updated weblog of information currently being circulated. This would solve so many problems with disk space and deleted emails, it puzzles me that some corporate intranets haven't adopted these simple concepts for the easy distribution of information.

Cameron Barrett

How do you run your own?

Post.

Read.

Write.

Link.

How do you run your own?

How do I build traffic?• Post and link• Register with the portals• Get yourself into Blog rings• Stimulate discussion• Make some friends

How do you run your own?

More Advice• How to write a better blog

Why Blog?

Increase your knowledgeMake friendsImprove your writingFormulate your opinionsDo something good

Why Blog?

Increase your knowledgeMake friendsImprove your writingFormulate your opinionsDo something good

Introduction to Panel Members

Our Panel

Lake Effect - Dan Hartung

Our Panel

AKMA

Our Panel

KIPlog -Paul McCann

Our Panel

McGee’s Musings -Jim McGee

Our Panel

AbsenterNaz Hamid