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The Weblog Handbook
from the how's-that-navel-doing dept.
| The Weblog Handbook: Practical Advice on Creating and Maintaining Your Blog | |
| author | Rebecca Blood |
| pages | 195 |
| publisher | Perseus Publishing |
| rating | 9/10 |
| reviewer | genehack |
| ISBN | 073820756X |
| summary | great introduction to world of blogging, which also offers valuable info for the experienced blogger |
Blood begins the book in the obvious place, with a discussion of the history of the weblog format, and a functional definition of what a weblog is (and isn't). One issue with the word "weblog" as it is currently used is that it means little more than "website with time-stamped entries arranged in reverse chronological order". Blood attempts to expand on that definition by pointing out that the other thing weblogs have in common, in addition to chronological formatting convention, is "the primacy of the link":
"It is the link that gives weblogs their credibility by creating a transparency that is impossible in any other medium. It is the link that creates the community in which weblogs exist. It is the link the distinguishes the weblog -- or any other piece of online writing -- from old-media writing that has merely been transplanted to the Web."
One of my primary objections to this section of the book was the contradiction between the above position and Blood's inclusion, earlier in the same chapter, of "blog"- and "notebook"-style sites under the weblogs banner. "Blog"-style sites, in the book's taxonomy, are the nano-journals that showed up in the wake of easy-to-use tools like Pitas and Blogger. These web-based weblogging applications made it easy to let the world know when you were getting up from your desk to go pee -- and thousands of people jumped at the chance to do just that. "Notebook"-style web sites, on the other hand, are characterized by longer chunks of content; they tend to resemble essay collections more than anything else. Both types of sites are markedly different in content and authorial intent from the traditional "filter" style weblogs -- collections of links, annotated with short (or sometimes not so short) descriptions, reviews, or reactions.
Indeed, the former two styles of sites seem to be to be fundamentally different than the latter style, primarily in the extent to which they're inwardly versus externally focused. "Filter" weblogs link almost exclusively to other sites, and they link heavily -- usually averaging at least one link per entry, if not more. "Blogs" and "notebooks", on the other hand, have a much lower frequency of external linking, and are much more self-referential and insular than "filter" style sites. The three sorts of sites share similar formats and are produced with similar tools, but I would argue that referring to all of them as "weblogs" makes the word so generic as to render it useless as a description.
My quibbles over these taxonomic issues aside, The Weblog Handbook's introduction and definition of the "blog", "notebook", and "filter" terms to refer to the various sorts of sites that are collectively known as "weblogs" is a valuable contribution. Hopefully these words will be adopted by other writers in subsequent discussions of weblog history and form.
Blood moves on from the initial historical overview to a discussion of why someone would want to take the time and make the effort to start and maintain a weblog. She covers all the main bases: improving writing skills, improving thinking skills, and networking for personal or business reasons. This chapter might help you think of some new way to leverage your weblog to your advantage, but otherwise it struck me as somewhat redundant -- presumably, if you're interested enough to undertake reading a 200 page book about weblogs, you're interested enough to try running one for a week or a month and see what benefits you get from the exercise.
The next pair of chapters cover setting up a weblog. The target here is the new blogger, and depending on your level of technical sophistication, you might find the coverage a bit simplistic. Nevertheless, these chapters contain sound advice about choosing tools, about some of the conventions of the weblog community (permalinks, archives, sidebars), and about the all-important step of choosing a name for your weblog. After covering set-up, Blood dives into the business of actual creation: how to start writing weblog entries, and how to get better at it over time.
Blood also covers strategies for attracting and retaining readers, tempering those tips with the sage advice that webloggers that are constantly striving to get more readers will never be happy with the reader population that they currently have. This is one of the more critical points that the book has to make, in my opinion, and Blood does a good job of driving home the notion that there are better (and easier) ways of becoming famous than starting a weblog.
The sixth chapter, covering weblog community, ethics, and etiquette, is one of the book's most important. New bloggers that read this section will learn how to avoid offending established webloggers while they are starting out in the community. Bloggers that heed Blood's rules for ethical weblogging may even avoid getting sued for libel. Additionally, Blood deserves further kudos for making this section of the book freely available on her website.
Blood rounds out the book with some miscellaneous advice about maintaining a regular update schedule for your weblog, the wisdom of keeping some modicum of privacy for your off-line life, and the issues over making an email address publicly available -- opening yourself up not only to contact with your readers, but also with every spammer in the universe. None of the material in this chapter will be novel for the experienced web surfer, but Blood's thoughtful treatment is a good introduction for the neophytes that are still out there.
The book finishes up with a trio of appendices. The first covers an actual session with a particular weblog application; the second contains some practical Elements of Style-style advice on creating "linktext" -- the actual words inside a hypertext anchor; and the third offers information on the mechanics of running a weblog -- selecting a web hosting provider, buying a domain, analyzing log files, and so on.
The Weblog Handbook is a well-written, well-rounded, thoughtful introduction to the art and practice of maintaining a weblog. The author, Rebecca Blood, has taken her years of experience gained maintaining her own weblog, boiled it down into concise nuggets of information and advice, and then presented it with a vigor and enthusiasm which clearly reflects her love for the weblog form. Recommended for novice and old-school webloggers alike.
You can purchase The Weblog Handbook from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Blood covers all the bases (Score:5, Funny)
Compare and contrast (Score:5, Funny)
Blogging == mental masturbation (Score:2, Insightful)
Why would I care to read your stupid rantings? Why would I care to get my daily news from someone with as much authority on the 'news' as myself? Are we so in need of entertainment that our ravenous hunger for material has necessitated the development of individual publishing?
Don't get me wrong, that individual publishing exist is a beautiful, beautiful thing. However, the blog phenomenon is about as interesting as reading other peoples checkbooks.
Re:Blogging == mental masturbation (Score:4, Informative)
But do you have the time to find all the news on every subject you're interested in? I know I don't (busy posting here!). For example, I'm interested in Google, but I don't have time to find all the news on Google (not Google News), so I visit the Google Weblog [blogspace.com] and find the news there. Same thing for PHP, I can visit php.com and zend.com but I don't really have time to visit all of the other sites, so I visit PHP Everywhere [weblogs.com].
Could I find most of the news they do? Sure. Is the news all theirs? No, most of them are full of links to other news sources. But, since so they're interested in this news topc, over time, they can become "experts" on it themselves.
Then what is Slashdot? (Score:5, Funny)
You seem to have no problem reading Slashdot -- the mecca of "Stupid Rantings" (though I haven't seen Katz in a while).
Re:Blogging == mental masturbation (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would you care to talk with your friends? Because they might have insight or perspective that you find interesting. A weblog is nothing more (or less) than a way to express those same thoughts to many of your friends at once, without repeating yourself, and putting those thoughts where other people can also find them if they want to (or not, if they don't). Why do you have a problem with that?
Re:Blogging == mental masturbation (Score:5, Insightful)
But my friends and family all over the world DO. I used to send out mass emails to my whole address book. Blog allows me to have a bit richer content, add photos, whatever. The people that DO want to know what I'm up to like it. Thats all I really care about.
Everything about weblogs... (Score:5, Interesting)
If Timothy can advertise books on the front page, I can advertise a blog in the posts.
blogs need a book? (Score:3, Insightful)
It is exactly this kind of overanalyzing that is making the web suck.
Next book "BLOGging for Idiots" (Score:4, Funny)
White hot world of web logs? (Score:2)
Do people actually still read and write these things?
Re:White hot world of web logs? (Score:5, Interesting)
I mean, I came across some guy's site (I think his name was Rannie -- it was a Photography/Read the stories of my life Blog) -- and found him talking about "blogging meetings" and playing some sort of "survivor" blog game, and then bemoaning all the popular new Blogs these days because they're forgetting about the Blogger Old-Schoolers (and then he named a bunch of Bloggers who, I guess, are incredibly famous in the world of blogs.)
Anyway, I was surprised to stumble on an apparently thriving little (big?) sub-culture.
Me, I suspect the deal with Blogs is that when they're good -- they're really good -- but when they're bad, they're wretched exercises in navel-gazing narcissism. (Not that there's anything wrong with that, however.)
New Book (Score:4, Funny)
Thank you.
Blogging Basics (Score:3, Funny)
10 PRINT Opinion
20 IF OPINION = NotHorriblyCrappy THEN GOTO 10
30 END
A BOOK about blogging? (Score:2, Insightful)
Blogs have to be one of the most natural uses of the web for not-too-techie folk. Easy-to-use tools to get your opinion out to the world pretty close to real-time. But you read a book to figure out how or why to do it?
Too early for /. (Score:3, Funny)
That was a disturbing image.
I want to grow up a Blogger just like you! (Score:3, Funny)
NEWSFLASH: Nobody cares, you FuQn moron!$@
Great! Now there is a book on blogging. So grandma can unload her rusty memories from 1940's onto the internet, clogging the perfectly fine storage space on google.com CEASE AND DECIST GRANDMA! Unless its going to bring something new to the humanity, you're better off doing something productive until the grim reaper comes to take you away into the land of extreme blog hatred.
Oh, lets not forget those 14y/o angsty teens who listen to Linkin Park and Avril Lavigne. If these are the people who will be the next wave on the internet, then I'm switching to analog computing and will chew off my CAT5 cables just to liberate myself from the trainwreck of the civilization that is the World Wide Wreck.
Did you know Hitler used to Blog? Yep. It's called Mein Kampf. Scary stuff folks.
So next time you see a blogger, kindly break his/her fingers so they can become an end-user (Read Only), and not a pseudo-webmasters/mistresses spelling out the end of the civilization as we know it.
BLOGGING IS WRONG. AND YOU KNOW IT.
This rant was brought to you by Committee on Coffee Deficiency.
Does the book include... (Score:5, Funny)
If so, I may have to buy it so I can be down with the kids on the street. Yo.
Ade_
/
blogging is best learned by blogging (Score:3, Informative)
Blogging can be learned two ways. Visiting blogs. Its easy, there are tech blogs [scripting.com], there are pundit blogs [instapundit.com], there are blogs for dogs [doggieblog.com] and blogs4God [blogs4god.cm]. There are even nichy topical blogs, such as how to fix your church's web page [healyourch...ebsite.com].
Then there are a variety of free or next-to-nothing tools to get the job done. For the absolute newbie, there is Blogger.com [blogger.com]. Once you've figured it out a bit, you can graduate to MovableType [movabletype.org]. And if you're really afraid of HTML, you can spend $49 and do it brain dead with Radio Userland [userland.com]. There are also a gazillion of choices [urldir.com] inbetween.
The point is, blogging is simple. Its not more difficult than back in 1995 when we all posted our first kitty-kat pictures using notepad or VI. Writing good content for blogs is the hard part.
Jesus, it's like the Smurfs(tm)... (Score:5, Funny)
Brainy Blog: That's obvious, Papa Blog. If you blog the blog equations, you'll blog to the obvious blogclusion that --
Blogette: Lookout! It's Blogamel! With his evil Blog!
All the Blogs: Oh no! Blog for your lives! We're blogged! Blog me! Run for the blog! Save the blogs!(etc)
I'm blogging for the cure. Are you?
Blogs are bollocks! (Score:3, Insightful)
The simple truth of the matter is that 99.999% of these people have nothing of any interest or value to say.
Or look at it like this.
Once upon a time, people had diaries. Books of blank paper in which they would scribble down their tepid thoughts, worthless deeds, bad goth poetry (is there any other kind?) and stories about their cats. Then at the end of the day they'd close up the diary and shove it under the mattress, as it was all secret and they didn't want anyone to read it.
But now we have blogging and livejournals, and rather than writing all this stuff in a book and hiding it under the mattress, they publish this on the internet for all to see.
How many terabytes of diskspace is taken up with bad goth poetry? How many servers does it take to hold everyone's wibblings about their bloody cats?
How many gigawatts of electricity has to be generated to power the servers and the routers and all the infrastructure needed for these things to work?
They're all just a terrible waste of resources!
Remember this. Weblogs pollute the planet, physically and psychically. Just Say No!
Too many pointers, not enough pointees (Score:2)
As it is, we already have plenty of sites that point to other cool sites. (memepool, etc.) I think it is wrong to encourage people to create more - the truly motivated already are doing so. We need to teach people how to find something that is NOT already covered a hundred times (Why isn't there a page that tells us what charles nelson riley is doing right now?) and to make an interesting page that people will actually want to point TO.
Live journals are a cut above that, because at least they aren't just pointing to other people's works. But, again, you don't need a book telling you how to make a live journal - go to one of the live journal sites and start. The people who would possibly have an interesting live journal are already doing it.
I guess what I'm saying is that anyone who would buy this book is probably not someone who will be adding any interesting content to the web.
Okay... Hold on a second... (Score:1)
I edit my weblog with nano. Granted, I also edit it live, which bothers people as a concept, but I ssh into my data area for my web site, "nano -w weblog.html", and type away. When a month's worth of entries are generated (on the calendar change) I roll the old weblog over to weblog-archive-year-month.html, and start a new weblog with a template for the headers, page formatting, etc, using cp. I then link the new weblog.html to the archive, link the archive to the new weblog.html, and add an entry to the archive list page. It takes ten minutes per month if I'm drunk off my ass and can't type.
I know that I'm not necessarily doing it the standard way, but HOW can one write a full sized book on weblogging?
Better yet, how can someone justify paying more than $0.50 for said book?
Don't click on Slashdots book link (Score:1)
Save some money.
Blooooog (Score:2)
Day 57 of my ./ Blog (Score:2)
As I arrived to work, I cruised on by ./ [slashdot.org]
and low and behold, there was a report of a new book on how to Make My Own Weblog.
Much to my suprise, I had been going about it all wrong. you see, I am apparently
supposed to copy and paste my writings into the text upload field as opposed
to cutting and pasting. You can just imagine the virtual egg on my face. My
whole Blog World was turned upside down.
Next they are going to say something crazy like I should submit my site to search engines [google.com] to increase traffic to my rantings.
I find that the book could be a very difficult read for some and I have decided to create a Blog Book Discussion Blog [slashdot.org] to account for what looks to be a tumutuous journey through this wonderful guide. I also have plans to create m own new guide, The Blog Book Discussion Blog for Dummies [slashdot.org], to be available in time for the holidays. Please visit my Blog Book Discussion Blog [slashdot.org] and buy my The Blog Book Discussion Blog for Dummies [slashdot.org].
Peace, until next time...
Karaoke (Score:5, Insightful)
blogs for education (Score:2)
Look here if curious. [bennington.edu]
what I want in a blog (Score:2)
1. A blog that has a challenge/response login page. This would be a blog that for my family that I would post updates and pictures of my kids. I don't want the whole world reading about my kids. The pages would be secured by a set of challenge/responses that I could enter such as: "My mom's maiden name", "My Dad's middle name". My immediate and extended family can answer those questions and get in without the need to remember any kind of userid/password.
2. Blog pages that I can create limited-access URLs to. For example, let's say I have a blog I use to keep design ideas. Only I have access to it. But I create a couple entries that I'd like to share with a couple friends for feedback. I'd like to be able to create a URL with some kind of key that I can email them. They can click on the URL and get to that page and no other. Then they can submit feedback.
Is this available?
-tim
Only one usefull blog (Score:1)
Most Blogs Are Rants, But... (Score:3, Interesting)
I take other blogs with a grain of salt. Some I read for other professional/user perspective (such as Doc Searls [weblogs.com] or the venerable Dan Gillmor. [siliconvalley.com] I enjoy the casual thoughts from Meg, a cofounder of the Blogger blogsite [megnut.com], and, just for kicks and grins, read sites with attitude like Up Yours, which chronicles the happiness of a lovely mom in a twisted little world. [sekimori.com]
The real problem with blogs isn't blogs itself. That's like blaming the gun for the shooting of a person. The problem is that most people can't string a simple sentence together, which makes reading some sites a pain.
On the up side, people who can't write may find blogging to be theraputic--if they can stand the mail flames.
I personally like how I plug my own blog with my sig, like so:
I am a wee bit offended... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I am a wee bit offended... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's just an idea that floats around in your head as you write...that someone might have an interest in what you're writing. It's romantic, and it's fun. Who cares if it actually happens or not; the potentiality is real.
The easy way (Score:2)
So beautiful! (Score:4, Funny)
My Blog is not for you (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't post for the masses or rant about world issues. Everybody knows that opinions on the internet are like assholes. Everybody's got them, and most of them stink.
Who I do post for are my friends and relatives, who, if they wanted to, could check up on my life, see my work sched (I work shift), read a bit of my relational life and all the little stuff you don't want to repeat to every single friend, again and again. It's my bulletin board, and it's all mine. If you know me, check it out. If you don't, I don't have anything interesting to say to you, except for some pictures of my hot friends.
Weblogs and WikiWikis (Score:3, Interesting)
As far as I understand, my personal wiki site is similar to those "notepad"-style blogs... Something like a collection of essays, thoughts, reviews, some quotes stolen from diferent places, etc. The wiki gives an advantage, though - if I wish, I can easily structure the content of wiki by multiple criteria. The blog organization seems to be mostly chronology-oriented (is it correct?)
Anyway, does anyone have experience in both blogging and wikiing (ha! invented a word!)? What are their pro/contra for personal-notebook usage?
Slashdot and Free Speech (Score:1)
But when someone brings up the most basic free speech issue of all, people expressing themselves, the Slashdot response is "People write the most meaningless crap. I don't want to hear your opinion. Destroy the Blogs. I'm unplugging the internet."
Look, the internet is an incredible medium for free expression ("free" as in both speech and beer) and can reach all sorts of people regardless of physical distance. So someone wants to write some Goth poetry or detail the boring events of their day. So what? No one is forcing you to read it. If you don't care for what they have to say, don't read it. If you disagree with them, let them know. But saying that people shouldn't be wasting web space with their ideas, opinions, and expression is ludicrous, especially if you're trying to defend free speech in other cases.
If you have complete freedom of expression you are going to have people expressing pointless views, ignorant views, and stupid views (like on Slashdot). But you will also find people with intelligent views, useful views, and profound views (like on Slashdot). If you start controlling and limiting expression, you will get rid of both sides of the spectrum.
Oh god. (Score:2, Funny)
What, no mention of MicroBlogger? (Score:1)
No SQL, No PHP, No CGI?
Written in 100% self-regulating Bash script:
MicroBlogger 1.7 [ibiblio.org]
Cheers,
Bowie
Best weblog program (Score:1)
These books are nearly all bullshit (Score:2)
They're mostly dull simplistic guides to posting your thoughts and feelings on the Web. Big deal. They're as useful as the classics, 'How to write a diary' or 'How to read a book'.
The only book worth its salt, IMHO, is We:Blog [blogroots.com], since it covers the commercial and emerging angle of weblogs in being used with commercial situations. But books for personal bloggers? A waste of time. Really.
Blood (Score:2)