Just had a telephone call with someone interested in the whole blog thing, which made me have to think about what it is all about. Here is my take on it:
- Don’t ask the difference between a blog and a website, think of a blog as the website you’ve just updated.
- There is a whole culture out there. You need to read it before you can write it.
- It is about people, not information technology, hosting companies or software.
- Well, people are software.
- Do it as often as you can – aim for every day and write for those whom you want to read it.
- Write what they want to read.
- Allow other people to comment freely. If you don’t let them comment on your blog they will comment about you on their own.
- Blogging is performance rather than writing.
- Blogging (well this kind of blogging) is a form of striptease. All one’s soul is laid bare.
- You are more likely to realise non-financial benefits.
- It is about community.
Did I miss anything? What advice would you give someone thinking of starting a blog, particularly one designed to drive people towards a commercial site?
Blogging
Enjoy the whole process and let people know your url.
Blogging – pictures
As someone who enjoys the pictorial side do not forget Kelvin’s Photoblog at http://photoblog.thurible.net/
A picture can communicate a thousand words.
Blogging
I think what I enjoy is way in which you gradually develop a sort of parallel/virtual universe – disconnected in space and time – and invite other people to step inside it.
On the more serious side, you need to be very cautious about people and situations. I note that, quite properly, Kelvin’s blog tells us almost nothing about how things are going at the Cathedral!
more advice
Sorry for the late contribution here, but I could not appreciate blog culture until I realized the following, which I think every blogger should heed.
1) Don’t take blogging too seriously – it’s not journalism, it’s not memoir, it’s not an academic journal (etc), it’s not an easy way to get your writing “in print” – it’s somewhere between an online confessional and a digitally-mediated small group conversation, especially when viewed not just individually but in relation to other blogs. And…
2) DON’T TAKE BLOGGING TOO SERIOUSLY – either what you write, what other people write, what you comment, what they comment or what anybody comments! It’s not legitimate, intricate discourse, it’s pub chat online. It’s BS-ing around the ping-pong table in somebody’s basement.
That’s all I’ve got.