Soaring through the Blogosphere
I wrote an article on blogging recently for the Association for Women in Communications’ Seattle newsletter. Thanks to AWC for their permission to post it here…
Soaring Through the Blogosphere
So you have a website. Big deal. Everybody and her sister has a website. My grandfather’s got a website and he’s dead. I mean, you’re not really anybody unless you’re Anybody.com. Websites! Those are so 2003!
What you want is a blog.
What do you mean, “a what”? A blog! Short for weblog. A log of the web. Sheesh, you are so unhip.
Haven’t you been keeping up with the news? Democratic Presidential hopeful Howard Dean may not win his party’s nomination – in fact, as I write this, he may be about to join Lieberman and Clark for drinks at the Wha’ Happa? Club – but without the tireless efforts of bloggers he would have remained nothing but an obscure candidate from …um… Vermont? New Hampshire?
Anyway, the point is that blogging has been one of the hallmarks of the Dean campaign and one major factor behind its come-from-nowhere catapult into the front ranks. Each day, writers for Dean’s Blog for America (blogforamerica.com) post articles, opinion pieces, campaign news and more. Often the entries are short – a couple of paragraphs about an upcoming rally, perhaps; other times the campaign will post the text of an entire speech.
But the real magic happens when people write back. Simply by clicking on a link at the end of each article, thousands of Dean supporters respond to their candidate and to each other in a real-time online exchange of ideas. And their candidate listens and writes back. In a Wired magazine article in January of this year, Dean admitted that the blog takes an active role in shaping his campaign. Ideas that don’t work in the blogosphere (geekspeak for a community of bloggers) are worked and reworked until they do resonate with Dean’s base of support. The result is a campaign like no other in American political history, a truly democratic force.
Of course, one of the drawbacks of a blog community is that they can’t stop you from yelling “Ye-aaaagh!” at the top of your lungs, one of the most self-destructive personal outbursts since Al played tonsil hockey with Tipper at the Democratic Convention.
I’m just making the point that the blog is a powerful thing. With push-button publishing of breaking news, blogs like The Command Post (command-post.org) are executing a blitzkrieg on traditional media outlets. InstaPundit.com and The Volokh Conspiracy (volokh.com) are providing news analysis at the speed of light. But the great thing about these sites is that the communication is happening both upstream and downstream and in real time. Web sites are becoming less like television and more like talk radio.
So now you want one, too, right?
What’s that? What are you going to do with a blog? Why, just about anything. After all blogs are as individual as … as… as individuals.
A blog can be anything you want it to be, from an online journal to a photo album to a virtual news room to your own personal publishing house. Blogs have audiences of a few (a workgroup or a family) or millions. As blog pioneer Rebecca Blood (rebeccablood.net) points out in “The Weblog Handbook,” the one thing that blogs share is a format.
Whatever they look like and whatever their purpose, true blogs will have a list of links (usually in a narrow column on one side of the web page) and a list of entries in reverse-chronological order (latest entry at the top). Good blogs also include hypertext links to other websites (aka “linktext”) within the text of the entries. Most of them allow readers to comment on the entries. And any blog worth its salt will also have one other crucially useful feature: permalinks.
Permalinks, or permanent links (am I going too fast for you here?), are hypertext links that allow readers of a blog to access entries once they no longer appear on a blog’s front page. This feature allows blogs to be searched by date, keyword, and category. Imagine being able to search your writing journals going back years. (I know I wrote down a list of “Great American Novel” ideas, but where did I put it…?)
Blogs, then, with their flexible format, search functions, and capacity for two-way dialog, are powerful tools for communication. Businesses are starting to recognize this by creating blogs to be a more dynamic and responsive online presence for their customers and employees than a static website. The latest information about a product or service can be posted instantly, and the online community can respond and react. A business thus leverages more knowledge and expertise, and, through that involvement, fosters an emotional connection.
Individuals – especially writers – are using blogs as personal publishing systems. The traditional path to publishing is to write, submit, be rejected, write some more, experience more rejection, and maybe eventually get published. (Not that I’m bitter.) Blogs have exploded the paradigm by allowing anyone with a computer to publish their work for all to see.
Well, of course, websites allow that, too, but a successful blogger has to create an audience. A good writer who posts regularly enough and with enough skill will develop a following, and therefore a reputation. And building a reputation is key to eventually becoming published traditionally. And becoming published traditionally means that one day after your book and all the signings and interviews, at a cocktail party, someone might ask you, “So who did you say you are again?” (Not that I’m bitter.)
So, okay, so you know what a blog is now, right? Pretty much? That’ll do. We can’t expect miracles. It’s a short article. Read The Weblog Handbook for more details and see the sidebar to this article for websites that will get you blogging.
Listen, good luck with all this and let me know if I can help. Drop me an email or IM me.
What do you mean, “what?” IM me. Instant message. Hul-_lo_! Welcome to 2004!
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Stuart Maxwell is a freelance writer living in Seattle. His current project is a history of the Haitian Revolution. You can find his blog at stumax.com. His grandfather’s website is mbbmemorial.org.
SIDEBAR – The Skinny on Blogging
Blogging once required the specialized skills of a web designer. Now, it’s as easy as using a word processor, though you’ll still find a basic understanding of HTML helpful. It’s also inexpensive (is “free” cheap enough for you?) Type the following websites into your favorite browser to see which one is right for you. We’ve listed them from the easiest to the most advanced.
Once you’re online, you’ll want to connect, but have patience. Like any community, bloggers have their own ethics and conventions. Read some blogs for a while to learn the ropes; here are a few basics.
Post early, post often A regular schedule will help you build an audience.
Link it If you reference text that’s online, link to it.
Don’t pick at it Resist the urge to rewrite what you’ve posted. Pretend it’s written in stone.
Keep it legal Publishing online is still publishing. Copyright laws apply even in hyperspace.
Keep it simple Frequent, short posts are perfectly acceptable. Although…
Be yourself It’s your blog, so forget the rules and make it your own.
Friday, March 12th, 2004 @ 10:18 am 
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