All About Blogging – Part 1: What is a Blog

By Christine Gertz

You may be surprised to know that most people don’t know what blogs are. It almost floored me when I presented at a conference this summer. There were several people in the room who wanted to know more about them, and I, in my social networking arrogance, thought that blogs were dead.

First it’s okay not to know what blogs are. According to the most recent research conducted on blogging from the PEW America Internet and Life Project, over 60% of survey respondents did not know what a blog was. From the same survey, only 27% of Internet users read blogs and 7% have actually created a blog—and this doesn’t mean that they have maintained it. Next, since many websites have co-opted the blogging appearance or formula, it is difficult to tell if you are looking at a blog, a newspaper or straight advertising. Finally, much of our promotional effort is spent, not on blogging, but on in-person service delivery, or, if we spend much time online, we are probably focusing our efforts on online networking (Facebook, LinkedIn) and not worrying about blogs at all.

Blog is the shortened version of “web log”, like a Captain’s log or diary on a ship (think geek and imagine all of the people who wannabe crewing the Enterprise and you’ll understand how this technology got its name). According to Rebecca Blood, author of the Weblog Handbook, the first blog appeared in 1993, though some would argue that they appeared later, in 1997. This means blogging is over a decade old—a rude grade schooler to some people, a venerable oldster to others.

You may not be writing a blog, but it is possible that you are reading blogs. Newspaper columnists and authors, such as Penelope Trunk of the Brazen Careerist, are now posting to a corporate site or have their own blog. You may have searched for a product or item and been directed to a blog post without realizing that it is a blog. You may have had a subscription to a newsletter that has redeployed or moved some of its features to a blog. And you may just be a regular blog reader and you read the Jibber Jobber Blog, Jobacle or Career Hub. You may also be following blogs for your hobbies or other interests.

The blogs that you normally read or comment on, which usually appears as a list of links, is known as your “blogroll.” Creating a personal reading list of blogs is no more difficult than bookmarking the page, or using the tools in your browser to subscribe to the blog’s feed. If you want to know more about how to find blogs to read, please visit the Career Development of Alberta (CDAA) website, which has a section on Career/HR blogs and how to subscribe to them,www.careerdevelopment.ab.ca/

The study of blogging and bloggers has been neglected lately in favour of dispersing cautionary tales about the accumulation of “digital dirt”, or on the impact of social networking on career services. Digital dirt is the accumulation of bad things said by others or incautiously revealed by that person in an Internet forum. Blogging can contribute to the accumulation of digital dirt if the blogger presses “publish” without thinking, or if he/she engages in sensational link baiting, by writing inflammatory posts to get links and drive up site traffic.

Bloggers have also been “dooced”, where they were fired for blogging about company “secrets”, or for using the organization’s time and resources to keep a blog. Websites where digital dirt accumulates such as Facebook and MySpace, as well as other online networking sites, have occupied more time and interest. This is true not only for people who study internet usage, but also for career developers who would like to use this marketing tool. They may have shed their blogs in favour of social networking.

But the blog is not dead and, oddly enough, social networking and the mish mash of other online competitors may keep the blog alive. One of the earliest providers of free blog space, Live Journal, is as much a social community as it is a blogging platform. Facebook application providers have made several applications (apps) that will allow users to import their blog into their Facebook page. These are only a few examples of blogging-social networking hybrids. Blogs may still have long lives in areas such as: counselling, public relations, marketing and product testing services, especially when crossed with a community. The blogosphere has not popped.

Part 2 of this article will be forthcoming in the Fall edition of the Contact Point Bulletin.

All About Blogging – Part 2: How to Write a Blog Post

Christine Gertz is the Library and Information Specialist at CAPS, University of Alberta. She has written and presented on the uses for technology in career and student services. Her note-taking blog is available at www.co-agitating.blogspot.com/ and she is a very bad blogger.

References

Rainie, L. (2005). State of Blogging. PEW Internet & American Life Project. Online:www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/144/report_display.asp