A brief introduction to blogging for absolute beginners...

1. What is a Blog?
[You already knew I was giving you this link…]
A blog (a contraction of the term weblog) is a type of website, usually maintained by
an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other
material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-
chronological order. quot;Blogquot; can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add
content to a blog.
Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as
more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other
blogs, Web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave
comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are
primarily textual, although some focus on art (artlog), photographs
(photoblog), sketches (sketchblog), videos (vlog), music (MP3 blog), and audio
(podcasting). Micro-blogging is another type of blogging, featuring very short posts.
As of December 2007, blog search engine Technorati was tracking more than 112
million blogs.
“Blog”, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blogging
NOTE: For a useful discussion on different types/categories of blogs and the “politics of blogging”
read the entire Wikipedia entry…

2. But What Do I Say?
First, a couple of questions:
1) Are you interested in blogging?
2) Will you ever need to collaborate with or communicate with folks via blogging?
3) Are your target companies/industry thought leaders blogging?
If the answer to all of these are a resounding, “No!”, why worry about blogging?
If the answer to even one of the above questions is yes or maybe, you really have nothing
to lose from giving it a shot.
My sincere recommendation is to begin by reading blogs you find interesting…
Go to Technorati http://technorati.com/ or Google’s Blog search http://bit.ly/1zK0m
and do a search for something you find interesting, or even better, something about which
you feel passionate.
Once you’ve identified a few interesting blogs set up some RSS feeds and get to reading.
Chances are you’ll discover you do have something to say.

3. Links to Information on Blogging Platforms
i.e. the place where you blog
Choosing a Blogging Platform, from Blogging Basics 101:
http://bit.ly/12hDwY
Rating the blogging platforms, from PCWorld
(a little older, but still some good information):
http://bit.ly/xhFG1
Online Journalism Review ‘s Blog Software Comparison Chart:
http://bit.ly/11No0I
Most popular free platforms:
Blogger:
http://www.blogger.com/home
Wordpress:
http://wordpress.com/