Chapter 27
The Blogosphere
Do you hate the word “blog”?
If you do, you're not alone. For a lot of people, the word “blog” represents a younger generation they don't understand, technology they find intimidating, and an Internet culture that's passing them by. Whether you love blogs or hate blogs, the facts speak for themselves. Blogs get more traffic than static websites. Blogs are favored by the search engines and all the latest and greatest online tools cater directly to blogs. Bottom line: If you're not blogging, you're missing out on most of today's online opportunities. If you're not that familiar with blogs, they look a lot like websites. In fact, you've probably been on blogs and not even realized it. The difference is in the plumbing. The information is organized differently, but the blog “culture” also represents a significant departure from the old static websites that used to dominate the Internet. We'll be discussing that in future chapters.
Another significant characteristic of a blog is the “subscribe” function. Blogs have something called an RSS feed. It stands for Really Simple Syndication and it's this RSS feed that facilitates the subscription. If you have a blog and I subscribe to it, and if you update your blog with a new post, I don't have to visit your blog to see what you posted. It can get pushed to me through the RSS feed (either via e-mail or within a “reader”-like Google Reader). Admittedly, people may or may not subscribe to your blog. That's not the ...
