Weblogging Introduction

May 19, 2003

NOTE: This is an old presentation I gave quite awhile ago (using MovableType as my Powerpoint), forgive it's out-of-date information and inaccuracies. I am only using it now to play with Eric Meyer's S5 tool.

What is a Weblog?

• According to Jorn Barger (who originally coined the term in 1997):

  A weblog (sometimes called a blog or a newspage or a filter) is a webpage where a weblogger (sometimes called a blogger, or a pre-surfer) 'logs' all the other webpages she finds interesting.

  The format is normally to add the newest entry at the top of the page, so that repeat visitors can catch up by simply reading down the page until they reach a link they saw on their last visit.

• This definition has been muddied by personal "journals" (which has annoyed some traditionalists)

• Personal hypothesis: the broadening of this definition is partly due to the versatility of the weblogging software and services.

Types of Weblogs

Community (news) blogs:

• Slashdot.org, Pennyarcade journal with (Comic)
• Google News?

Personal blogs/journals:

• Dan Gillmor (SJ Mercury), Howard Dean (maintained by campaign staff), Wil Wheaton, William Gibson, David Hyatt (Safari/Mozilla developer)
• Four of the top ten "blogs" are personal blogs/journals (according to Technorati).
• Blogger.com: 1.1M registered users, est. 200,000 active

Common Attributes

• Time-index, dynamic, current content
• Single author (personal blog) vs. many author (community blog)
• Searchable (blogchalking [example])
• Many links to external sites (editor rather than journalist)
• Comments

• Usually provide content in easy-to-syndicate format (RSS->RDF->XML)

• Good aesthetics

• Bad information design (example)

Blogging in the news

• Trent Lott criticism linked to blogs (Atrios and Instapundit)
• Where's Raed? covered by BBC, MSNBC, etc...
• Popular myth about Jessica Lynch floated by blogs

Blogging and Google Go Hand-in-Hand

• Blogging's nature is amenable to Google's search algorithms
• Google Bombing (making a page a top search result):
  • For fun, profit, or revenge
• MovableType includes Google API support (example)

• Where's Raed? is top search result for "Baghdad"

• Technorati perhaps provides a vision of Google's future

  • Top 100
  • Current Events

Playing with Blogging

Options for setting up your own personal blog:

• Thirdparty provider
  • Blogger
  • Logjamming
• Downloading free software
  • MovableType
  • Radio Userland

My setup:

• MovableType + Apache 2.x Web Server on XP
• ActiveState Perl

Basic Demo

General Architecture

Input:

• Database backend (e.g. MySQL, BerkeleyDB)
• CGI for data entry/site management
• PHP/XSLT-like templates
  • Tags embedded in HTML
  • Conditionals, iterators

Output:

• Static HTML pages (front page, archive pages)
• XML for syndication (RSS)

Plugins

• Blogging user community = development community
• MovableType has "Open Architecture," encourages plugins
• Examples:
  • Text formatting: TikiText, Speling, Regex, Map Locations (Example)
  • Content portal: Weather, News/link feeds, Book Queue (w/ Cuecat support), Amazon (Example)
  • Programming: variable setting, SQL

Third-Party Services

• BloggerBot: add content via AOL IM
• audioBLOGGER: add audio content via phone
• Bloglet: Subscribe to content via e-mail
• Blo.gs/Weblogs.com: Repositories of recently changed blogs.

• Moblogging (example)

• Technorati: Add your "Link Cosmos" to your site (Example)

• Blogrolling: Manage yours links easily (Demo)

Wrap-Up

A personal definition: Weblogging is enabling users to leverage Web sites as a communication channel to talk about Web pages (content).

Parting example: Trackback (example demo)