The Art of Blogging
Welcome to the era of unprofessional journalism; where current affairs
are juicier and valued when it's posted from normal people like you and me
rather than unanimated top-notch experts from News agencies; where
personal opinions hold much greater value than cold hard fact; where
people loose jobs and get hunted by the Federal Institutions because of
the things they post on the Internet.
If you have no idea of what we're talking about, you need to
fast-forward two or three decades to the present, because right now you
seem to be quite preoccupied with 1985. (A blog is a dynamically updated
website by a person or a group on current affairs, personal experiences or
anything related.) A recent study estimates that about 11%, or about 50
million, of Internet users are regular blog readers and there are about
70,000 new blogs a day. On average there are about 29,100 blog updates an
hour.
The power of Blogging - Up close and personal
Disasters that shook the world like the Tsunami and Katrina were well
documented by News agencies so the world could get a glimpse of what
really happened out there. But the blogsphere made quite an impression in
delivering the same stories with a much more personal and down-to-earth
touch where the descriptions were individually expressed with all the
feelings of remorse, hopelessness, and weariness intact.
One of the powerful things about blogging is that every blogger has
their own paradigm of things. Their jobs maybe different. Their dreams and
aspirations maybe different. Their age, cast and creed maybe different.
Thus the way they perceive life can be different. The wonderful thing is
all these aspects are reflected by one's blog. It shows not the covering
of society (as newspapers and television does) but rather the inside
mechanisms that run it.
The people who blog, do it for the sake of expressing themselves. There
is no other way that you can reach out to the millions of people out there
in the world. And with one google search there is no other way that people
can get to know someone better.
Another brilliant thing about blogging:- If you register to a blogsite
and keep on posting after 20 or 30 years you'd be able to access your own
blog (as long as the Internet and the Human species survive for that long)
and see what you've been upto and where your life has taken you in a
single glance.
How to get started - Creating your own webspace
The hard way of doing things is to register a domain, buy some webspace,
design a website and keep on updating it. But thanks to the free blogging
sites available now these steps are automatically done for you. You only
need to select an appealing template and post your thoughts every now and
then. You need no prior knowledge web programming or webdesign
what-so-ever.
The most popular blog creating site is Blogger.com, which is perfectly
serviceable, looks great and offers everything you need. If you don't like
blogger there are heaps of other sites like wordpress.com, bloglines,
Livejournal.com, TheDiary.org, Blogdrive.com - they all support an evenly
number of features you can include to your blog. (If you have money to
spare you can always go for a feature rich but for a small fee, such as
Typepad.com)
After going through the easy steps of creating your own blog. You'll
need a way to upload pictures and files to your blog. If you use blogger
then you can use google software like Hello, or Picasa to upload pictures.
Otherwise go to www.free-webhosts.com/free-image-hosting.php there you'll
find a heap of free image and file hosting websites. Post at least once in
three days and Build a network with other people in the blogsphere - make
friends online!
So now you know the power of blogging as well as how to get started
with your own blog. Last but not least be creative and be yourself.
Whether you're angry, sad frustrated or overwhelming with joy make sure
the reader feels you. That's about it!
So get that feet moving (and fingers as well) and leave your footprint
behind in the immense network of the world wide web.
Comments : [email protected]
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