Creating Web Sites: The Missing Manual
17.1. Understanding Blogs

The word "blog" is a nerdy abbreviation of Web log , which makes sense because blogs are made up of regular, dated blurbssort of like a cross between a diary entry and a newsgroup postings. "Blog" is also a verb, as in "I just ate at a terrible restaurant; when I get home I'm going to blog about it." Figure 17-1 dissects the anatomy of a basic blog.

Figure 17-1. A typical blog has posts ordered in reverse chronological order, starting with the most recent at the top of the page. The home page for the blog may feature the last few recent entries, or just the most recent one. If blog entries are extremely long, the home page might just show the first few paragraphs, with a link to read the rest (as in this example). Off to the side, you'll find other details like a calendar or set of links that let you read older posts, a picture or blurb about the author (not in this example), or a list of recommended blogs (called a blogroll).

Although blogs simplify Web posting, it's unfair to say that blogs are just a simplified way to work the Web. Rather, blogs are better understood as a wholly different form of online communication. And although there's no definitive test to decide what is and what isn't a real blog, there are several characteristics that most blogs share:

Note: When a large amount of activity, information, and opinion erupts around a particular subject or controversy in the blogosphere , it's sometimes called a blogstorm , or blog swarm. You can find more blogtastic jargon at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weblog.

The actual content of a blog isn't fixedit can range widely, from political commentary to personal travelogues. There are hundreds of thousands of blogs online today. In fact, the Blogger service alone hosts several million blogs, of which several thousand are considered active blogs.

The best way to get a feeling for blogdom is to check out some popular examples. To see an example of widely read political commentary, surf over to arch-conservative Andrew Sullivan's blog at www.andrewsullivan.com. Or check out the insights of Salam Pax, the Baghdad blogger (now a Guardian columnist), who captivated the media world with a frank, gripping account of life in war-torn Baghdad at http://dear_raed. blogspot .com. For somewhat lighter fare, visit the curiously popular www.wilwheaton.net, a blog by Wil Wheaton, the actor who played the nerdy upstart Wesley Crusher of Star Trek fame. For expertise and observations from security guru Bruce Schneier, surf to www.schneier.com/blog. The list goes onfrom journalists to hobbyists to sports heroes and porn stars, it seems almost everyone's willing to psychoanalyze their life or chat about water- cooler topics with an audience of millions via a blog.

Tip: Blogs are a specialized niche that can't compete with a lot of the other types of sites you've seen. For example, you can't effectively sell a line of clothes for dogs on a blog. However, many people start blogs in addition to ordinary Web sites. This is a great combination. Visitors love blogs because they crave a glimpse behind the scenes. They're also sure to visit again and again if they can count on a regularly updated blog to offer a steady stream of news, gossip, and insights.

17.1.1. Syndication

One of neatest features about blogs is syndication . Syndication is a feature that allows avid blog readers to monitor their favorite blogs using a specialized program (called a feed reader , or news aggregator ). You fire up your feed reader, and enter links to all your favorite blogs. The feed reader periodically checks these blogs for new postings, and lets you know when they show up. Quite simply, a feed reader lets you stay up to date with all your friends in the blogiverse, without forcing you to surf back to every blog 94 times a day to check if anything's new. Feed readers are the only practical option if you need to follow lots of blogs regularly.

Note: Feed readers are a little like email programs, which, of course, let you regularly check to see if you have new messages from any of your friends. This is a lot more efficient than contacting them each individually and asking if they have anything new to say. Similarly, you can use a feed reader program whenever you want to check up on blog activity. If there's nothing new, you find out in an instant.

Although most blogs work with feed readers, some don't. In order to work with a feed reader, a blog needs to provide a feed (Figure 17-2). A feed contains recent blog postings in a computer-friendly format. Feed readers know to interpret feeds to get important information like the title, description, and date. Feed readers also use feeds to determine whether or not there are any new postings. Technically, feeds are in an XML-based format, because XML is a data standard that can be interpreted on any computer platform.

If you want to try using a feed reader, you've got lots of choices:

Figure 17-2. Top: Most blogs will have a link somewhere on their home pages that provides a feed. Look for the word feed or syndication. Sometimes, the link includes the actual name of the feed format, like RDF, RSS, or Atom (all of which are designed with XML), so be on the lookout for these words too.

Bottom: The feed won't look like much to you, but your feed reader can interpret it.

Tip: For an article that describes different feed readers, see http://weblogs.about.com/od/aggregators.

Figure 17-3. FeedDemon (www.bradsoft.com/feeddemon) is a modern Windows program that lets you keep your finger on the pulse of the blogiverse. You can monitor dozens of blogs (or more) at a time, and home in on any new activity.

17.1.2. Blog Hosting and Software

Before you can set up a blog, you need to understand the different kind of blogmaking options out there. There are really three types of blogs:

In this chapter, you'll spend your time using one blogging tool, called Blogger. Blogger is simple to use yet powerful, which makes it the best candidate for all-around blogging champ.

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