So far, in the keeping up-to-date series, we’ve covered RSS feeds, Social Bookmarking and news alerts.
Today, I’m focusing on blogs for those readers who haven’t yet taken the plunge!
The word ‘blog’ is an abbreviation of web log, which is usually written ‘weblog’.
Firstly watch this short fun clip on blogging by Commoncraft. It explains blogs brilliantly!
The BBC also provides a short introduction.
Blogs differ greatly in tone and quality. What the good ones do tend to have in common, however, is that they can help to create communities of like-minded people. Readers might be regular visitors drawn from similar professions, or with similar interests, or might be just passing by in search of a useful nugget of information on a particular topic. Given that blogs offer instant publishing opportunities, you potentially have access to a wealth of knowledge from commentators and experts (if they blog) in a wide range of fields.
Most internet searches will turn up results from blogs, but there are some blog-specific search engines such as:
Blogdigger
Blogsearch
Technorati
You will see that some of the blogs you find offer RSS feeds, so you can add them to your feedreader to keep abreast of the latest postings.
Why not start your own blog. Its so quick and easy. You can have your own blog up and running in 3 easy steps from this website – Blogger.
One thing to bear in mind is that the content of blogs is likely to be as diverse and varied as the people who posted it. It’s therefore practical to apply the PROMPT (presentation, relevance, objectivity, method, provenance and timeliness) criteria if you intend to in any way rely on the information you find on blogs – in particular look for timeliness (How often is the blog updated?); provenance and objectivity (What is the blog for? Who put it there and why?).
In addition blogs have another benefit – given the time lag between writing and publishing a travel guidebook, for example; it might be better to search for a blog, to get the very latest hints and tips on where to go and what to see.
I look forward to receiving your blog links for those who give this a try and also learning about your findings on blog searches from the recommended links.
Happy Blogging!
Other posts in this ‘Keeping Up-to-Date’ series:
Posts
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