Getting Rich Online - Create Your Own Blog
So what is a Blog anyway? I am asked every week via emails, conversation and Instant Messaging chats to define: 'what is a blog?'. If you're reading this you may well be asking the same question.
There are a number of ways I could answer this question ranging from the broad to the highly technical.
Before I define the 'what is a blog' question - here are a few definitions from other much wiser people to get us started:
'A weblog is a hierarchy of text, images, media objects and data, arranged chronologically, that can be viewed in an HTML browser'
'A frequent, chronological publication of personal thoughts and Web links'
'From "Web log." A blog is basically a journal that is available on the web. The activity of updating a blog is "blogging" and someone who keeps a blog is a 'blogger'
"A weblog is kind of a continual tour, with a human guide who you get to know. There are many guides to choose from, each develops an audience, and there's also comraderie and politics between the people who run weblogs, they point to each other, in all kinds of structures, graphs, loops, etc"
"A blog is basically a journal that is available on the web. The activity of updating a blog is 'blogging' and someone who keeps a blog is a 'blogger.' Blogs are typically updated daily using software that allows people with little or no technical background to update and maintain the blog. Postings on a blog are almost always arranged in cronological order with the most recent additions featured most prominantly."
"A blog is a website in which items are posted on a regular basis and displayed in reverse chronological order. The term blog is a shortened form of weblog or web log. Authoring a blog, maintaining a blog or adding an article to an existing blog is called 'blogging'. Individual articles on a blog are called 'blog posts,' 'posts' or 'entries'. A person who posts these entries is called a 'blogger'. A blog comprises text, hypertext, images, and links (to other web pages and to video, audio and other files). Blogs use a conversational style of documentation. Often blogs focus on a particular 'area of interest', such as Washington, D.C.'s political goings-on. Some blogs discuss personal experiences"
So What is a Blog???
Confused yet? Don't be - its really quite simple. To put it as simply as possible - a blog is a type of website that is usually arranged in chronological order from the most recent 'post' (or entry) at the top of the main page to the older entries towards the bottom.
Blogs are usually (but not always) written by one person and are updated pretty regularly. Blogs are often (but not always) written on a particular topic - there are blogs on virtually any topic you can think of. From photography, to spirituality, to recipes, to personal diaries to hobbies - blogging has as many applications and varieties as you can imagine. Whole blog communities have sprung up around some of these topics putting people into contact with each other in relationships where they can learn, share ideas, make friends with and even do business with people with similar interests from around the world.
Blogs usually have a few features that are useful to know about if you want to get the most out of them as a reader. Lets examine a couple briefly.
Archives - You might look at the front page of a blog and think that there is not much to them. A few recent entries, some links to other sites and not much else. However its worth knowing that there is a lot more going on under the surface that might initially meet the eye. For example in addition to the main page of this blog - at the time of writing this post there are over 520 other pages or posts below the surface that I've written over the past few months.
A great way to learn about blogs is to read a few. Leave some comments, ask questions and bookmark your favourites. An even better way to learn about blogs is to start your own. Ok - you might be laughing at me now - you think you are not web savy enough to have your own site? You wouldn't know where to start? You don't know how?
My Secret
Let me share a secret with you - three years ago I knew nothing about blogs, I had never used the internet for anything more than email, surfing and chatting to friends and I could only barely do any of that! But one day I discovered a blog and after surfing from one to another (blogs tend to link up to other blogs a lot) for a few hours I was hooked and wanted to start my own. I found that there are free blog services that almost anyone could set up in a matter of minutes. Really it is that simple. Literally millions of people blog from around the world. Its not just something for young people, or geeks, or cool folk, or Westerners, or even for people with their own computers - instead its something virtually anyone with access to a computer and the internet once or twice a week can start up.
