95% of my readers will know by know what a weblog is. After all, you’re reading one. Weblogs, however, are the subject of this month’s column for the Yaletown View:
It pains me to admit this, because ‘blogger’ is such an unattractive word. It smacks of utter nerdiness, of glasses and pale skin. I’m a self-confessed geek, though, so I guess there are worse things to be oneself.
But first, what is a weblog? Good question. A weblog is many things, but two of them are most important:
- An easy-to-use, frequently-updated website with dated entries listed in chronological order. Hence the merging of the terms ‘web’ and ‘log’. When you post to your weblog, it’s commonly knowing as ‘blogging’.
- A social phenomenon that started with the geeks but has gone decidedly mainstream in the past couple of years.
Weblogs can be about anything, and can have one or a thousand contributors. Like most online trends, they started out as the strict purview of geeks and introverted teenagers. Now, however, people of every age, profession and nationality have them. Stephen Harper has one, and so do the Barenaked Ladies. Mark Cuban, owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, has a weblog, and so does Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst.
Blogs look pretty much like any other website, and work the same way. The difference is that, unlike most sites, they change frequently. More importantly, they’re simple to set up and use. This has lowered the bar for personal publishing on the Net, and has enabled many non-geeks to express themselves online. In this way, weblogs represent a further democratization of the Internet, enabling more people to communicate their views to an audience often jaded by traditional online media offerings.
Why do people blog? For as many reasons as there are weblogs:
- They’re exhibitionists.
- They’re experts in on a given subject, and want to share that knowledge.
- They want to become citizen-journalists, writing about stories mainstream media outlets ignore, or analyzing the coverage itself.
- They want to promote themselves or their company’s products or services.
- They’re collaborating on a project, and have decided weblogs are the best way to exchange and archive information.
- They want to express their views.
And how big is the audience of the average weblog? In truth, very small. Like an communications media, the most popular ones receive the lion’s share of the attention, as much as several hundred thousand readers a day. For the average blogger, though, that number is closer to ten or a hundred readers a day. For many people, that’s more than enough—they’re happy with their tiny audience of family and friends.
Weblogs have also emerged as a new communication between companies and their users. Increasingly, companies host weblogs on their site, in which they publish company news, commentary and links to resources their customers are interested in. In the business world, weblogs provide a new way of talking to your customer base, one that’s less formal than a press release. By the same token, many bloggers write about companies or review products on their sites. Marketing departments are starting to notice—a mention of their product on the right sites, and a company’s sales can soar.
If you want to start reading weblogs, where should you begin? Fortunately, there’s a great deal of interconnectedness in the weblog community. Once you find a few you like, you’ll find frequent references to dozens more. Here are a few good places to start:
- Blogdex (http://blogdex.net) – This site evaluates,
in real time, what bloggers are talking about. It’s an excellent tool for
learning about the water cooler topics of the day. - Boing Boing (http://boingboing.net) – One of the most
popular weblogs, Boing Boing is a collaboration of five prominent writers. - Kinja (http://www.kinja.com) – This ‘best of
blogs’ site offers some prime choices based on subject matter. - Blogs Canada (http://www.blogscanada.com) – A
directory of over 8000 weblogs from north of the 49th parallel. - Urban Vancouver (http://www.urbanvancouver.com) –
A collaborative blog from our city, organized by neighbourhood. - DarrenBarefoot.com (http://www.darrenbarefoot.com) –
I would be remiss if I didn’t indulge in some self-promotion. Generally I
write about technology, politics, the media and whatever else occurs to me
in the shower.
Next month, I’ll explain how to start your own weblog.
DarrenBarefoot.com 