Blogging 101

Qumana Set-Up

Getting Started

Qumana DropPad

Using Images

Editing Old Posts

Inserting Ads

Technical Info

Post to Email

This section is intended to be a basic primer on blogs and blogging. There are far more exhaustive resources online, including on the Qumana blog itself (http://blog.qumana.com/).

  1. What is a blog?
  2. What is a blogger?
  3. What is the blogosphere?
  4. What is a blog post?
  5. Dynamic vs. Static Structure
  6. Database-driven
  7. Templates
  8. Comments
  9. Trackbacks
  10. Permalinks
  11. Content Organization
  12. Tags
  13. What are blog posts?
  14. What is a blog editor?
  15. Why use a blog editor?
  16. What blog platforms are out there?
  17. What is a feed? What is RSS?
  18. What is an Aggregator?
  19. Why would you use an aggregator?
  20. What Aggregators are there?
  21. Blogging Writing
  22. Linking
  23. Commenting
  24. Relationships
  25. Markets are Conversations

 

What is a blog?

  • A blog is essentially a website, with a few features to set it apart. A blog lets people write content easily, and have it shared easily. Blogs make writing to the web easy, because the traditional content management system of a website, usually known only to webmasters, is replaced by a system as easy to understand as email.
  • Blogs are not simply online diaries or journals, although many such exist. While there are many people blogging to simply speak with friends or family, thousands of businesses have started blogging, mainstream media is blogging, and experts from all areas are sharing their knowledge online.
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What is a blogger?

  • A blogger is someone who writes on a blog. The diversity of bloggers is tremendous. Some are hobbyists, some are journalers, others are the leading analyists and thought-leaders in their fields. One thing that connects all bloggers: they love what they do and love to write about it.
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What is the blogosphere?

  • The blogosphere is the word used to describe the world of blogs - the blogosphere represents all blogs on the internet, and more specifically the community of bloggers working, interacting, and writing together.
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What is a blog post?

Some of the features setting blogs apart from other websites are structure, features, and purpose. These include: Dynamic vs. Static

  • Traditional websites tend to be static. The pages are created and stay as they are for a long, long time. Blogs, on the other hand, are constantly in flux. Given the ease of creating and publishing information to a blog without knowing HTML, new content is easily added, along with more links and more comments. Blogs are organic and dynamic sites. This makes blogs more "search engine friendly" than a traditional website.
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Database-driven

  • All blogs are managed and run by a back-end database. The average blogger never sees this. The database aspect is important because it allows blogs to actually have a large amount of content taking up very little disk space on a server.
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Templates

  • Since blogs are built on top of a database, they use templates to display the content. These templates can be customized to have what ever look and feel desired. The template has special codes built in to pull information from the database to display to the blog visitor as a page. From a design stand point this is important. Deploying a blog is easier than a traditional website since, in essence, only one page is created for the whole site. And if a new look and feel is needed, changing the template changes all pages at once. Most blog software comes with ready-made templates that can be used without knowing how to install them.
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Comments

  • This is one of the key features and facets of a blog, comments. Readers can, and are encouraged to, leave comments on the blog about the articles. This continues the dialog and discussion started by the article, and extends it. Comments are part of what makes a blog a community, social networking, relationship focused site. Comment areas are usually found at the bottom of a post.
  • At the time of this writing (late September, 2005), comment spam is reaching epic new heights, this is temporarily stifling comments. Since comments are so important to the culture of the blogosphere, solutions to this plague are being actively worked on.
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Trackbacks

  • A trackback is a link to an article from another blog. On a blog trackbacks are shown at the bottom of an article with a link to the other blog and a short excerpt of the other article. Trackbacks, like comments, suffer from spam that is reducing the value and usefulness of trackbacks.
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Permalinks

  • Unlike database-driven websites of the past, each blog entry has a "permalink", that is a real link or URL that can be bookmarked, linked to, and most importantly found and indexed by search engines. This link is permanent and unique giving each blog post its own unique identity on the web.
  • Since blogs are updated frequently, this permanent identity not only benefits search engines, but allow for readers to scan older posts no longer shown on home pages, and to link to each article - not just the blog name - in reference. This ability to interact specifically has powered much of the interaction and community development of the blogosphere.
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Content Organization

  • When someone writes something on a blog, it is shown at the top of the page - this is known as reverse chronological order.
  • Each time something new is written on a blog, it is posted (meaning it appears on the blog) at the very top of the main blog page, and the pages for each category archive, pushing the previous articles down. This unique way of sharing information and thoughts, organizing them with "new" at the top sets blogs apart from websites. Just like websites, however, the content is usually organized. Each new post is assigned to one or more categories, making it easy to find later.
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Tags

  • Tags are the latest innovation on the Blogosphere. Tags are a way for authors to to put special links within a post that categorizies the content. Blog search engines like IceRocket (http://www.icerocket.com/) and Technorati use (http://www.technorati.com/) these tags to help searchers refine and find content on the topics they are most interested in quickly. Qumana has a sophisticated tagging ability that allows bloggers to describe via tags what is in the content of their blog posts and insert the tags with one click. This helps search engines and blog directories to find that content. Better tagging means better visibility on the Web.
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What are blog posts?

  • Blog "posts" are the essence of the blogging phenomenon that has taken off in recent years. A "post" is basically an article, written in varying styles and lengths, usually linking to other articles or websites, with some new perspective or opinion.
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What is a blog editor?

  • A blog editor is a way to easily, and quickly, create these posts. Most blog editors free bloggers from having to know HTML code, and allowing them to gather and write information in a way as comfortable as Word.
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Why use a blog editor?

  • Most blog editors free bloggers from restrictions associated with blogging: having to post from within a web browser, learning HTML, no spellcheck, having to be online, waiting for the delays associated with website loading. Blog editors are easy, offline ways to easily manage blogging. Qumana also allows for more speed in blogging, via the DropPad, and for easy post-based advertising insertion.
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What blog platforms are out there

  • Hosted
    • Blogger
    • Blogware
    • Squarespace
    • Typepad
    • Bryght
    • WordPress
  • DIY
    • MoveableType
    • Wordpress
    • Expression Engine
    • Textpattern
    • Drupal
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What is a feed? What is RSS?

  • A feed is a computer generated file that is created with each and every blog post - this file is sent onto the internet and allows anyone to read it using an aggregator (see below), rather than visiting the website. This gives great power to individuals and companies to easily share (or 'syndicate') their blog posts. The feed is very much like the information inserted into a newspaper and distributed around the world - the only difference, this newspaper is online, and contains an infinite variation of personal feeds all read together.
  • Every time a blogger posts new content, the file is updated and that gets sent out to the Internet, can be searched, and can be read by other bloggers in Aggregators or even delivered as email.
  • Two common formats of feeds are RSS and Atom.
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What is an Aggregator?

  • An aggregator is anyone's personal blog reader, as they are often called. Aggregators come in distinct programs, or can be based on a webpage that can be accessed anywhere on the web.
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Why would you use an aggregator?

  • The aggregator stores the blog feeds of anywhere from one to hundreds of different blogs, allowing people to read the blogs without ever visiting them. Unlike newspapers, aggregators are completely customizable to any content you want - simply subscribe to the feed, for free, and it will be delivered to you.
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What Aggregators are there?

Blogging Writing

Blog writing is a new, emerging, and evolving form of writing. It tends to be informal, personal, off beat. People tend to write straight from brain to keyboard. This isn't always the case, of course, as blogging is evolving and more professionals and consultants are using blogs as a platform for their thoughts, blogging is becoming more structured. Despite this evolution there are three facets of blogging that remain constant:

Linking

  • Linking to other blogs (via your blogroll or your posts) is the hallmark of blogging. It is this network, this mesh of thoughts and ideas, that makes blogging what it is. Linking is also what makes blogs search engine magnets - each link you get is a 'vote' for your blog in search engines, making it more powerful. Linking then flows into the next facet of blogging, comments.
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Commenting

  • When I'm asked about what makes a blog so different than a "regular" website, comments comes to the top of my mind. Most blog posts allow comments from readers - each post has the ability to allow people to comment - leaving name, website, and dialogue right at your post. This continues the discussion presented. The ideas can shift and gain depth. And as people leave comments, bloggers find other people to link to, which leads to more linking and comments and finally to: relationships.
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Relationships

  • Blogging is truly a global social network. Thousands of friendships are made every day. The process of reading other people's blogs, leaving comments, linking to them, inevitablity starts the process of forming friendships and relationships. Of course, there are spats and squabbles, and even cliques, but by and large it is these relationships that make blogging what it is.
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Markets are Conversations

  • These relationships have an interesting facet when it comes to business. Markets are conversations in the truest sense in the blogosphere - employees, customers, investors all talk and participate in the blogosphere. Most likely, your company has been talked about by someone - customers are taking a more active role now than ever in actively participating in buying decisions and company feedback. Businesses now have a unique opportunity to get in, listen, and react to this commentary, and to take lead on their own blog if they so wish. This conversation, this dialogue, is emerging as an important shift to business communications.
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