Joining the Blog Community

The newest type of web community is called a weblog, or just blog for short. Blogs are personal websites, like the one in Figure 26.3, that are updated frequently with commentary, links to other sites, and anything else the author might be interested in. Many blogs also let visitors post their own comments, resulting in a community that is very similar to that of a message board.

Figure 26.3. The popular Slashdot blog (www.slashdot.org).

note

The "blogosphere" has become particularly important for political bloggers, on both the left and the right, who often break politically related stories before major news organizations.

Searching for Blogs

There are literally hundreds of thousands of blogs on the Web, covering just about any topic you can think of. To find a particular blog, check out the following blog directories:

• Blog Search Engine (www.blogsearchengine.com)

• Daypop (www.daypop.com)

• Feedster (www.feedster.com)

• Globe of Blogs (www.globeofblogs.com)

• Weblogs.com (www.weblogs.com)

Creating Your Own Blog

If you want to create your own personal blog, look for a blog hosting community. These websites offer easy-to-use tools to build and maintain your blog, and do all the hosting for youoften for free.

Some of the most popular of these blog hosting communities include

• Blogger (www.blogger.com)

• eBloggy (www.ebloggy.com)

• tBlog (www.tblog.com)

• TypePad (www.typepad.com)

Of these communities, Blogger (which is owned by Google) and TypePad are probably the biggest. As you can see in Figure 26.4, these sites make it extremely easy to create your own blogit's really a matter of clicking a few buttons and filling out a few forms. And once your blog is created, you can update it as frequently as you like, again by clicking a link or two. (Figure 26.5 shows how easy it is to create a new blog entry with Blogger.) Once you get started blogging your daily thoughts, you'll never want to stop!

Figure 26.4. Use Blogger to host your personal blog.

Figure 26.5. Creating a new blog entry with Blogger.

tip

In addition, many traditional website hosting communities offer blogging features. Learn more in Chapter 28, "Creating Your Own Web Page."

The Absolute Minimum

Here are the key points to remember from this chapter:

• Usenet is a collection of more than 30,000 topic-specific newsgroups that you access with a newsreader program, such as Outlook Express.

• Web-based message boards are similar to physical bulletin boards, in that they enable users to exchange messages about a common topic.

• Community groups such as MSN Groups and Yahoo! Groups offer message boards in conjunction with other features, such as chat, photo albums, and file hosting.

• Blogs are Web sites updated constantly with personal commentary and links to other sites.

• You can create your own personal blog at Blogger, TypePad, and other blog hosting communities.