Blogging 101

Many of the people I talk to about this blog say something to me like: "What's a blog?"  (That kind of thing sure keeps you grounded, doesn't it?) If you are one of those people who is just figuring this out, follow the link below for 

a simple, step by step example of how to dip a toe in the blogging waters

Scroll down to the article How to get into Blogs, 101 at the tecosystems blog.  It's got a lot of interesting and useful stuff, and is relatively free of mystifying technojargon. 

The biggest thing you need to know about to get value from blogs is how to use an aggregator.  I use Bloglines, which is pretty straightforward, and also FREE.  When you see a blog you want to read again, you simply subscribe using Bloglines, and then you can see updates to your whole list in one place, instead of surfing over to each one.  Bloglines makes this subscription process easy for you by giving you a "bookmarklet" that you save in your list of favorites.  When you are on a blog you want to subscribe to, you can click your bookmarklet, and Bloglines does this for you. 

Some blogs put buttons on their sidebars that will also add that blog to your aggregator.  Just like the ones over there on the left of this page.  (It took me a while to figure that part out too)

We all know a few people who are not really part of the digital age -- they don't have a computer, they don't use e-mail.  They're missing a lot of richness and diversity.  Aren't you glad you're not one of them?

Postscript added April 5, 2005

An even better description of how to start a blog kindly provided by Michael Hyatt at WorkingSmart, which provides useful links to various blogging tools and aggregators.  And ongoing, his perspective on corporate blogging.

Postscript May 6, 2005

A great step-by step description of how to use Bloglines to keep up with lots of blogs without a lot of work.   From Betterdays blog.   Has lots of screen shots, step-by-step, and additional tips from other people who have commented.