Week 4
This week, we'll be exploring blogging. Blogging sites abound. The most popular are Tumblr, Wordpress, and Blogger; all are free. (Blogspot was once a premier player. Its signup page seems to have disappeared and takes visitors to Google.) The Weebly site you're creating also has a blogging feature. Some smaller companies use blogs as their web presence.
A great way to keep track of all the blogs you'll want to follow (or to help people follow your blog) is through the use of RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds. That's the symbol above you've seen everywhere but probably didn't know what it is.
A great way to keep track of all the blogs you'll want to follow (or to help people follow your blog) is through the use of RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds. That's the symbol above you've seen everywhere but probably didn't know what it is.
- Bloglines and Bloglovin are online resources that enable you to keep track of the blogs you follow
- Blog basics
RSS FEEDS
Originally an acronym for "Rich Site Summary," RSS is now generally known as "Really Simple Syndication." Regardless, the idea is the same. It's an easy way for people to follow sites, blogs, news headlines, podcasts, etc. These "feeds" carry either summarized or full text and metadata such as the author's name and date of publication. Wikipedia states, "RSS feeds enable publishers to syndicate data automatically. A standard XML file format ensures compatibility with many different machines/programs. RSS feeds also benefit users who want to receive timely updates from favorite websites or to aggregate data from many sites. Subscribing to a website RSS removes the need for the user to manually check the web site for new content. Instead, their browser constantly monitors the site and informs the user of any updates. The browser can also be commanded to automatically download the new data for the user." In other words, it's an automated service that helps users avoid constant data checks for new material. |
Avoid spam like what's below by moderating your blogs!
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TUMBLR
This is a free microblogging platform and social networking site. Users can post multimedia and other content in a blog format. Users can follow others' blogs or choose to keep their own blogs private. Features are accessed through a typical "dashboard" interface. Many free templates are available for download and customization. It was purchased by Yahoo! in May for $1.1 billion. |
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WORDPRESS
WordPress is the granddaddy of free blogging sites. It's a free, open source tool offering plug-in architecture and templates. It remains a very popular platform and is currently the most popular blog host in the world. |
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BLOGGER
This is a free blog publishing service that allows private or multi-user blogs with time-stamped entries. It was purchased by Google in 2003, at which point users were required to publish only on Google-hosted servers. |