Blogs

Blogs Introduction: Audience and Genre  The first thing you must know is that a blog is a discussion or informal site published on the World Wide Web. It is made up of moderately sized entries, known as “posts”, that usually are themed around a single subject. They usually display in reverse chronological order and can have any amount of authors. Recently Twitter and other “micro blogging” systems have helped integrate blogs into societal new streams.  A blogs audience usually is anyone that is interested in the subject at hand. The great thing about blogs is that it is a genre with amazing versatility. This is accomplished from its informal nature and the author’s power to post whatever they choose.  As a student, blogs can be very beneficial in the job hunt. It shows your employer that you are not only passionate about the subject at hand, but also willing to put in the extra time outside of a classroom to work in your field.

 Essential Elements: Design 

 Most blogs are devised of the same parts. The above picture maps the generic pieces needed for a blog to be considered a blog.  A – The Entry Title- This is the title given to the blog entry. Many weblogs begin their entries with the date and time it was posted. The actual “post” follows the entry title. At times there may be a link within the post, and at other times the link is called out afterwards.  B – The Date of the Entry- This is hyperlinked to a page where all the entries of the blog are for that day. Here is where you can see where all the post were published.  C – The Permalink- A permalink is a permanent link to that blog post. If you would like to bookmark or link to a post, you need to make sure it will be there.  E – Syndicate This Site- If you have an RSS Aggregator you can syndicate the site with this option. In other words, you can place the blog information of you Web site with a special RSS newsreader or content aggregator.  F – XML Icon- This icon is a representation of the syndicate this site links. It takes you to the actual RDF or XML file that can be used for syndication.  G – Read Archives- This is a major perk to a blog. Anything that is put into a blog will become archived. The archives are interesting because they can show how often the blog has been updated.

Example: Model Blog [] <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Rubric: Assessment <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">What makes a blog a good blog? It depends on who the intended audience is. If a blog is intended to be educational it should be just that. It should be knowledgeable, understandable, and intriguing. If a blog is intended to be entertaining it should be informal, funny, and memorable. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">A more technical analysis of what a blog should have would be dates, references, and resources.

- Eric Manahan <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Sources: <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">Kyrnin, Jennifer. "Anatomy of a Blog: The About Web Design Weblog." Weblog post.About.com Web Design / HTML. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 Dec.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">2012.Blood, Rebecca (September 7, 2000). [|"Weblogs: A History And Perspective"]

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif;">[|"After 10 Years of Blogs, the Future's Brighter Than Ever"]. Wired. 2007-12-17. Retrieved 2008-06-05.