What is blog and blogging?

12 Aug 2007 by TipsoSaurus

Nirmal has written a post on 7 blogging tips for beginners and that provoked me to write a series where I’ll be discussing about blogging and various tricks I learnt from my experience. In this post, I’ll start with the basic and then I’ll move further to the tips and tricks. So lets find out what is a blog and blogging :

The technical definition of a blog :

I’m a big fan of Darren Rowse and he has already written a post where he explains that what is a blog and he has covered the technical definition of the blog and explained the terms like blogging, archives, comments.

Here’s is the technical definition of blog given by Darren :

Blog is a type of website that is usually arranged in chronological order from the most recent ‘post’ (or entry) at the top of the main page to the older entries towards the bottom.

I know this may not be clear but go through the post written by Darren and you’ll get the exact idea of what exactly blog is all about.

My definition of a blog (not technical) :

Well, this is strange for me too but yes I’m writing some thing non-technical over here. Here’s what I think about a blog :

A blog is a platform where you have the option of expressing your ideas & views and you are ready to accept the views of the visitors through comments.

My definition of what is not a blog (I hope that most of the people will agree to this):

If we go by the technical definition then any website which has some posts arranged in chronological order can be called a blog but that won’t be a real blog. For e.g. if you copy and paste the posts of other people in a blog platform then it will not be your blog. A blog is your reflection and it reflects your ideology. It’s a way of communicating your thoughts to others in written format (it can have images too).

What is blogging :

The art of maintaining a real blog is blogging. Again, I stressed on the word ‘real’ because I think that a real blog is your ideas and if you can’t put your ideas across a particular thing then it can’t be called a blog post and thus that the art can’t be called blogging.

Why do I need a blog :

Interesting question! Well, there can be many reasons for one to start a blog. It can be just social connectivity, making money, finding a medium to share your feeling and thoughts and many more. Sandhill Trek is a blog where the author has asked the same question from 35 other bloggers and they gave their own opinion on why they maintain a blog and I’m sure you’ll find one reason out of those answers.

How to start a blog :

Ok, it seems that you are convinced on how you can start a blog. But, if you are planning to start a blog then you may either start a blog at any of these free services Blogger.com or WordPress.com.

So, now that you understand what is a blog and that you are thinking of starting a blog, then I’m sure you’ll love to find the ways of improving your blogging skills, if yes then you can subscribe to the newsletter of TipsoSaurus and don’t forget to subscribe to the newsletter of Darren Rowse’s blog too.

11 Responses so far

Vyoma August 12, 2007 9:41 am

Mayank, blog need note necessarily be a platform for putting out opinions. For example, if it were an art blog - I can obviously put opinion about artworks, but I can also choose it to be purely informational. (Keep posting only tutorials and how-tos).

But it is quite natural for readers to expect opinions in Blog posts - because originally, started out as an online journal. So, I say - keep that personal touch on your blogs no matter what kind of blog it is. :)
TipsoSaurus August 12, 2007 10:27 am

@ Vyoma : Hmm…you made a good point. I was thinking on that point too, however I restricted it to this definition because I think that a blog is something about personal opinion.

There are posts where you can’t give your personal opinion and if you have only that kind of posts coming in that “so called blog” then according to my point of view, that website will not be called a blog. It will be website which has the articles to help others.

Again, its my personal opinion and some will agree to it and some will not :)
Vyoma August 12, 2007 10:45 am

:P

We will agree to disagree.
Brown Baron August 13, 2007 2:41 am

Great start for the series buddy.
TipsoSaurus August 13, 2007 3:59 am

@ Brown : Thanks for the appreciation and I assure that you’ll not find the future post bad at all :). I’ve tried my level best to keep the most basic points but I’ve worked on the presentation that even experienced bloggers will also find it interesting. Call it self advertising but this is one of the way of keeping self motivated :)
Nirmal August 13, 2007 4:00 am

Nice series to start with, thanks for the mention.
TipsoSaurus August 13, 2007 4:03 am

@ Nirmal : Thanks to you who gave me the idea of writing this series :)
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Shankar Ganesh August 13, 2007 9:08 am

Nice series, it’ll be a great resource with the finished posts in series. :)

I liked your definition of what is _not_ a blog :D
TipsoSaurus August 13, 2007 9:27 am

Thanks shankar for the appreciation :) I hope that you like the rest of the series too.
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