The document provides an overview of blogging including: - Demographic information on bloggers such as education level and income - Different types of blogs such as personal, professional, community, and corporate blogs - Reasons why people blog such as sharing information, building community, and personal satisfaction - Examples of different types of blogs like photo blogs and tip blogs - How to set up a blog using platforms like Blogger or WordPress including adding features like comments, categories, and blogrolls

1. Agenda Who are bloggers Types Understanding the blogging mentality

2. What is a blog?

3. Perceptions of Bloggers? Blogging?

4. State of the Blogosphere 08 75% U.S. bloggers are college graduates 42% have attended graduate school More than half have a household income over $75,000 News blogs 2006 7%-12% regularly read blogs Nielsen/Netratings (2006) 13% traffic attributed to blogs

5. Four types of audiences (Pew) Traditionalists heavy tv, wx, mean age 52, 46% Disengaged 14% Integrators tv and online 23% Net newsers blogs, online, technology news, engaged, 13%

6. State of the Blogosphere Personal – creativity, therapy, communication Professional – sharing of information from usually individual standpoint Community - Corporate - published and used by the organization to reach organizational goals “ Blogging is having an incredibly positive impact on their lives, with bloggers receiving speaking or publishing opportunities, career advancement, and personal satisfaction.” (SOB)

7. Blogs http://www.dailypuppy.com/ http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/ http://www.kweaver.org/blog/ http://checkoutblog.com/ http://veggietalk.wordpress.com/ http://yogaforlife.wordpress.com/

8. Live Blogging http://www.coveritlive.com/ Commentary streams live to your web page or blog Readers viewing the commentary can ask questions and participate in polls Post pictures and respond to comments http://www.rjicollaboratory.org/

9. Link blogging

10. Splog Paparazzi of the sports world Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban banned bloggers from locker room in March of 2008 because it had begun to take a toll on his players Or a blog that disseminates spam http://www.fatcyclist.com/

11. Video or Photo Blog http://blog.nextnewnetworks.com/ http://wvs.topleftpixel.com/

12. Review or Tip Blogging http://www.sportsproductreview.com/review

13. Going beyond info dissemination Disseminators Interpreters Mobilizers Adversarial

14. You must be passionate, have a desire to share and educate

15. Sharing – SOB report

16. Why? Niche Enhance authority and promote oneself Build community Help others to learn

17. How journalists blog Journalists feel that info found in blogs is not credible, but perceive they will impact the news industry Competition Stereotypes… Rarely link to outside content Mimic news content Blog corral

18. Blogging Policies Don’t edit – libel Encourages conformity (McAdams) No opinion

19. Cutting out the Middle People Editors Comments or email Sources Officials, pr spokespeople

20. PR blogs Communicate Crisis blogging Save retail Brand loyalty Journalists read blogs Seek bloggers Cannot send pr to them, you have to understand their world Bloggers have a set of shared values, rituals and language, conferences, and are exploring codes of ethics

21. What is the Blogosphere?

22. Blogosphere Social network or public sphere representing a community that exists in space Links = Quality Blog Attribution Link to one another to build social capital Outbound vs. within links Increase traffic Increase transparency Increase diversity of viewpoints on topics

23. What is a Blogroll?

24. Comments Disagree respectively Extend conversation Share links to resources Use email for private conversations

25. Content Make recommendations Include product images Short posts 250 words Break into paragraphs Post once a day (M-F) At least one link Must be meaningful Detail via links Blogroll Never delete anything Personal voice Explain blogging React quickly Check grammar Biography including email Encourage comments

26. Writing Titles/Headlines Communicate a benefit Controversy or debate Use keywords Power words (easy, discover) Keep it short Don’t use periods

27. Elements of a Blog Post Video, picture, url Blogroll Collection of links Comments (allow) Categories (Labels) vs. Tags Archives

28. Copyright Embed videos from news orgs. and YouTube Link to content, not take content from other sites

29. Blogs Content Management System (CMS) Blogger - owned by Google Easy to use and get started Easy to embed multimedia Blogger mobile (send photos and text to your blog) WordPress Robust Resembles a Web site with pages Good comments spam filter Customize CSS themes only if you pay Both free

30. Blogs with Social Networks http://buddypress.org/ Install on WordPress to create a social network to friend other bloggers http://open.salon.com/cover.php http://open.salon.com/content.php?cid=21011

31. What is RSS?

32. Identify Fellow Bloggers Sign up for a RSS reader Search for bloggers in your interested topic area to help identify your niche Blogroll Technorati

33. Next Class Four blog posts Four comments on different blogs Learn how to set up a blog using WordPress Name, URL, Title Blogs for blogroll

34. Sign up for WordPress blog 1. Go to http://wordpress.com/. 2. Click the big blue button (sign up and create a new blog). 3. Choose your URL carefully because you cannot change it. Keep it lowercased. 4. Choose your banner title (e.g., Online Journalism, Happy Chickens). It should be something you can promote. 5. Go to your email to activate blog

35. Set up your blog 6 . Select Login 7. This is your Dashboard. Select “Settings” on the bottom-left navigation. Change your tagline “a sentence/phrase that encompasses what your blog is about” and time zone to -7 Under “Discussion,” uncheck: 8. Go to “ Appearance ” tab, select a theme that reflects your blog topic. Click on blog link to view what theme looks like You must decide: Two-column vs. three-column. Make sure it has at least two. Theme should allow the creation of pages (e.g., about, contact). Text should not be too wide across. Difficult to read unless it is a narrow column. Text should have good contrast with background.

36. Encourage user engagement with RSS 9. Register at http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/home Paste url to set up RSS Write down entire Feed Address Click Next 10. Select “My Feeds” and select your blog title. You can who is subscribing to your blog using RSS.

37. Set up your widgets 11. Go to Widgets (sidebar accessories that help connect you to others) under Appearance . If you have two sidebars, you will select which sidebar 12. Add Search , RSS , Pages , Links , Categories , Text , Askimet at minimum. Select Save and Edit Widgets. Pages – Title it “Contact” Text – Type 1-2 short sentences about who you are and the purpose of the blog RSS – just display item content and copy URL from Feedburner to your RSS widget

38. Set up Blogroll 13. Go to Links tab to set up blogroll 14. Delete wordpress.com and wordpress.org blogs 15. Go to Link Categories if you want both a “ blogroll ” and an “ useful sites ” link category 16. Go to “Edit” to add blogs and sites > Add new > Add name of blog/site, URL, and select link category

39. Begin writing a post 17. Select Posts tab, delete “Hello World” post 18. Select “Add New” 19. Add title or headline for your individual post 20. Begin typing post. It acts as Word Processor. Use Upload/Insert to add video, photos. Edit HTML to add video embeds. 21. Highlight a word, create a link using the link chain icon 22. Add tags and categories. Check mark categories if needed. 23. Save draft or publish.

40. Create a page 24. Select Pages tab 25. Edit page content 26. Turn off “allow comments and pings” 27. Hit update page

41. Blog Extras Sign up for http://pingomatic.com/ updates different search engines that your blog has updated Add your Technorati and Google blog to a directory http://technorati.com/blogs/directory/ http://www.google.com/support/faqs/bin/static.py?page=faq_blog_search_pinging.html Sign up for “Google Blog Search Pinging” service. Go to number three. Click “here” Click

42. Next Class Online Jobs Meet your groups for final project First blog post, comment, blogroll due