Did you blog today? Sounds like mommy dearest asking if you have brushed your teeth before hitting the sack?
Going by the speed at which the blogosphere is growing, this might be one question you will hear very soon and mind you, not in the very distant future.
But first the big question. Heard of blogs? You must have, because it is one subject that just comes up in common conversations these days. Read this or that in a blog. Incidentally, if blog sounds like bad English, please be informed that it is the shorter version of Weblog.
What must have started as an off-shoot idea of the dot-com boom (...and the bust) is today a full-time business for many. Business, not just in the sense of earning a living but something as routine as coming home to blog.
Sample this: "Uneventful day today. Went to work, went home. same ol' same ol' Rode the bike tonight for a bit." writes a blogger from Indiana, US.
If you can almost see the bored bloggers face, then you now know what blog is all about. It is the essence of the person who writes it or his/her state of mind.
Blogs are great joints for some insights too. "The Sumatra quake not only caused a devastating tsunami but also shifted the island of Sumatra 36 meters to the southwest. Furthermore it increase the Earth's spin," is the latest posting of kendallmiller on blogspot.com.
A posting in about.com informs that the number of blogs in the cyberspace has exploded to half a million from a few thousands in 1999. www.blogger.com defines a blog as "a personal diary. A daily pulpit. A collaborative space. A political soapbox. A breaking-news outlet. A collection of links. Your own private thoughts. Memos to the world."
Simply put a blog is a miniature website that can be what you want it to be. There are a host of blog service providers who for a very small price allow you to create you own blog. Of course there a quite a few philanthropists too who let you create one free of charges.
Try blogger.com and you will be amazed at the speed at which you can create a blog. A real test showed it took less than three minutes to create a blog and start postings.
This free service does not allow picture postings but redirects to another service provider BloggerBot to grab a software that can help you post the pictures.
A blog posting is as simple as writing an e-mail. The only difference is you don't write a blog to one person, but to anyone and everyone. Unhappy about Bush returning to office?
Go ahead, scream it off your blog and you might actually find a zillion democrats screaming along with you. There is also the 'official' Kerry-Edwards blog that talks on the duo's opinion on national security, economy & jobs, health care, energy independence, homeland security, education, environment.
Blogs have archives too, nicely stacked month wise. It even creates strings of ideas or views exchanged on any given topic.
While you create your blog it allows (not mandatory though) to add a host of attributes to your profile. From e-mail address to personal websites addresses to your favourite books, music and even your picture. Most blog service providers allow you to choose how you want your blog to look. Some of these are absolutely beautiful.
Blogging is not just a part of one's private life. It catching on in the world of business too.
As much as in politics or environmental concerns or simple musings from unheard of places on earth, there are blog service providers who recommend blogs as the cheaper and more sensible alternative to a full-fledged website. Large corporations might find this idea untenable, but for small businesses, it makes a lot of sense. Reasons:
One, it is cheap, two you don't need a geek's help, you can do it all by yourself. Three it is quick and simple which means you can make postings, change them and make it very personal, without being intimate of course.
Useful links
www.typepad.com: TypePad is a hosted weblogging service that gives users the rich set of features to immediately share and publish information like travel logs, journals and digital scrapbooks, on the Web. Typepad.com has three levels of service. The basic comes for $4.95 a month, Plus for $8.95 a month and Pro for $14.95 a month.
www.blogger.com: Now part of the Google family, blogger.com offers you blogging service free of charge and has some interesting templates too. This service was used for testing blogging hands on before writing this piece. It follows the KISS (keep it simple stupid) rule through and through. BTW, the service came through in flying colours.
http://radio.userland.com: Radio UserLand is a unique and powerful web publishing and weblog tool that is used and praised by many of the world's most accomplished web authors.
With advanced features such as an integrated news aggregator, Radio enables users to do far more than is possible with the hosted-only weblog products offered by others. After your free 30-day trial period, Radio costs only $39.95 per year complete with site hosting and 40 megabytes of storage.
www.xanga.com: This free blog platform is web-based. There is also a 'premium' (paid) version. It is growing in popularity, especially because of its community. Just sign-up and you will get a free blog going soon enough.
Don't forget to check the special skins, if you remember the days when Winamp skin collection used to be full time job? http://www.xanga.com/Skins/SkinsDirectory.aspx
