Following on from last week’s Getting to know you post, this week I thought it would be great to share our blogging stories; after seeing these nine questions on John Connell’s blog. 

If you want to join in, copy the questions below and post a link back to this blog post and add a comment to this post with your link.  

1. How did you get into blogging?

2. What were (are?) the motivations?

3. How does your “private” blogging relate to your work?

4 How do you achieve a balance of personal voice and authority

5. What can be achieved through blogging that can’t through ordinary news/reporting routes?

6. How do you follow other blogs and other forms of “public conversation”?

7. How does your blog connect to others in a “conversation”?

8 Are there other bloggers you follow especially, others you think are exemplars of the practice?

9. How do you feel about “lighter” practices such as Tweeting, facebook status updates etc…?

If you’d like to join in, copy the above nine questions into your blog and add a link to your blog post in the comments here.

The answers to my nine are below:

1. How did you get into blogging?
I started blogging because of my work. I found more and more that blogs were a great way  to find writers and readers together in one place who were from similar professions or with similar interests. It was a great way to learn.

2. What are the motivations?
Given the time lag between writing and publishing a travel guidebook, for example;  it might be better to search for a blog, to get the very latest hints and tips on where to go and what to see. This is what I like about blogging most, is that it provides up-to-date and instant information. Blogs differ in tone and quality and I like the variety. Subscribing to blogs has given me a greater appreciation of blogs and I learn so much through reading blogs, which is a great motivator. There’s so much inspiration to be found from blogs.

3. How does your “private” blogging relate to your work?
I don’t separate the two because I feel that it allows readers to learn more about me as a person and connections develop through chatting about a variety of subjects. I intersperse blog posts about my work with subjects from other aspects of my life. I keep two blogs, one for each of the Companies I manage: Skillkick and Woollywotnots. You can visit both blogs from each of the home pages. I’m also going to shortly be starting a new blog, as I embark on my PhD.

4. How do you achieve a balance of personal voice and authority?
My blog is my personal voice and my own views. Blogging is a way to share and collaborate together, learn about new things, gain knowledge and develop skills.

5. What can be achieved through blogging that can’t through ordinary news/reporting routes?
Blogging brings people together from all over the world at any time. You can share thoughts and ideas with people that would never have been possible without blogs.Blogs are a great way to connect and network.

6. How do you follow other blogs and other forms of “public conversation”?
I use RSS feeds, added to my bloglines, social bookmarking, news alerts, Facebook and Twitter.

7. How does your blog connect to others in a “conversation”?
By linking to other blogs within my posts, subscribing to blogs, commenting on blogs, posting links to Facebook and Twitter.

8. Are there other bloggers you follow especially, others you think are exemplars of the practice?
There are lots to be found. It depends on your tastes and preferences. I think a good way of finding blogs are through blog-specific search engines such as

Blogdigger

Blogsearch

Technorati

9. How do you feel about “lighter” practices such as Tweeting, facebook status updates etc…?
I don’t see them as ‘lighter’ practices, but intrinsic to the blogging world. I often grab links from Facebook updates and Twitter updates; as well as, through RSS feeds and email subscriptions. All the social networking tools together make it easier for information to be accessed.

So, that’s my story, what is yours? I’d love to read your responses and if you enjoy reading this blog, please consider subscribing for free. The two RSS feeds are found under the two woolly lambs at the top of this blog.

You can use my RSS feed http://woollywotnots.wordpress.com/feed/

Read here, to learn how to set up RSS feeds
Or add to your social bookmarking sites using the button found in the top left hand corner of this post called Share/Save.

Read more about social bookmarking here.

So far, in the keeping up-to-date series, we’ve covered RSS feeds, Social Bookmarking and news alerts. Today, I’m focusing on blogs for those readers who haven’t yet taken the plunge! 

The word ‘blog’ is an abbreviation of web log, which is usually written ‘weblog’.

Firstly watch this short fun clip on blogging by Commoncraft. It explains blogs brilliantly!    

The BBC also provides a short introduction.

Blogs differ greatly in tone and quality. What the good ones do tend to have in common, however, is that they can help to create communities of like-minded people. Readers might be regular visitors drawn from similar professions, or with similar interests, or might be just passing by in search of a useful nugget of information on a particular topic. Given that blogs offer instant publishing opportunities, you potentially have access to a wealth of knowledge from commentators and experts (if they blog) in a wide range of fields.

Most internet searches will turn up results from blogs, but there are some blog-specific search engines such as:

Blogdigger

Blogsearch

Technorati

You will see that some of the blogs you find offer RSS feeds, so you can add them to your feedreader to keep abreast of the latest postings.

Why not start your own blog. Its so quick and easy. You can have your own blog up and running in 3 easy steps from this website – Blogger.   

One thing to bear in mind is that the content of blogs is likely to be as diverse and varied as the people who posted it. It’s therefore practical to apply the PROMPT (presentation, relevance, objectivity, method, provenance and timeliness) criteria if you intend to in any way rely on the information you find on blogs – in particular look for timeliness (How often is the blog updated?); provenance and objectivity (What is the blog for? Who put it there and why?).

In addition blogs have another benefit –  given the time lag between writing and publishing a travel guidebook, for example;  it might be better to search for a blog, to get the very latest hints and tips on where to go and what to see.

I look forward to receiving your blog links for those who give this a try and also learning about your findings on blog searches from the recommended links.  

Happy Blogging!

Other posts in this ‘Keeping Up-to-Date’ series:

RSS Feeds

Social Bookmarking

News Alerts

SWOT

Miro 1.2.1
Participatory Culture Foundation

YouTube, Veoh Video Network, Google Video, Blogdigger, Revver, DailyMotion, Yahoo!, blip.tv, Yahoo! Video 지원.

Congrats to Washington DC-area entrepreneur Greg Gershman on the acquisition of his company Blogdigger by Odeo.  The folks at Odeo are really cool and Greg is crazy smart. I’m confident that Greg will do GREAT things there.

Odeo has acquired blog search engine BlogDigger for an undisclosed sum.

>>> Повече по темата тук!

Odeo Acquires BlogDigger

За по-лесно преглеждане на този блог препоръчваме използването на RSS FEED! Направете своята регистрация от тук!

The verdict: Yes, Google is still the best, but has competition chomping at its heels

PC World:

Does Google deserve all that traffic, or is it living off its reputation? Are people using it because they’re not aware of other, potentially better search engines? To find out, we pitted Google against its big-name competitors, Yahoo and Microsoft Live Search, as well as against smaller challengers such as AlltheWeb, AltaVista, and Ask.com–plus a couple dozen of the specialty search services, including Blogdigger, Picsearch, and TubeSurf.

Our verdict? Google is indeed the best search engine, even though two other services topped it–barely–in our text-search tests. Google’s index proved to be the most accurate, comprehensive, and timely of the bunch. It also bested the majority of the specialty-search sites we tried, meaning those that focus on a category or file type, such as videos, images, news, blogs, or local info delivered on a mobile phone.