Blog basics: Learn how to keep an online journal
Start your own Web blog and share your life online
Published: March 8, 2005
By Mara Gulens
According to Merriam Webster OnLine, the number one word its readers sought to define in 2004 was one we've likely all heard but are just beginning to understand: "blog."
The online dictionary site defines a blog as a Web site that contains a personal journal with reflections, comments, and often, hyperlinks provided by the writer. Short for Web log, a blog lets you keep information that you want to share with others—words, pictures, and even music—in one easy-to-locate online space, thus eliminating the need to send multiple e-mails to share your world.
Log your family life or express your thoughts
Andrea Rennick has no need to turn to the dictionary to understand what a blog is. This mother of four has been keeping a Web log about her family life since 1999, "before blogs were invented and they were called online journals," she says.
Rennick's blog, A Typical Life, is built around stories about her family life and includes postings on everything from her Saturday shopping adventures, to photographs of her kids, to reminders about upcoming meetings and her stained glass classes.
"It's a space to express my thoughts, where someone listens [and where] other moms commiserate and help me figure things out," says Rennick, who spends anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour—in bits and pieces—almost every day on her blog. Rennick's family and friends, including her 88-year-old grandfather, have become regular readers of her blog.
Rennick is one of thousands of women who now share their lives and experiences through blogs. A study by market research firm Perseus Development Corp. says more women than men start blogs, and women are more likely to maintain them.
Why women blog
Blogs can keep families and friends abreast of a baby's birth, provide updates on a loved one's medical condition, make wedding planning easy, and create a sense of community.
"Women plan weddings, conceptions, adoptions, detail pregnancies, and work through grief and divorces in blogs," said Rennick. "Everything women get together to talk about one on one or in a group, they blog."
Tracy Kennedy, a PhD candidate in the department of Sociology at the University of Toronto, believes that there are clear differences in the blogging experiences of men and women. "Women tend to write more personal diaries and accounts of their lives, whereas men often do not—it's more about circulating information."
Start your own blog
Setting up a blog is quite simple. The popular MSN Spaces, for example, will let you have your own blog up and running at no cost in literally a few minutes. Here's how:
| • | Log on to MSN Spaces and create an account. |
| • | Create a unique title for your blog and provide a brief description that will let others know what you're all about. |
| • | Use the blogging module to start blogging. |
But be aware that a blog needs to be updated regularly to maintain its appeal. "For a blog to be of any use it has to be constantly written to, because people need to come back to it every day or every couple of days to see what's new," says Nancy Burton-Vulovic, director of technology for DigitalEve, a global organization that recognizes and emphasizes the influence of women in the field of new media technology. "If you don't have the time or the interest to keep putting your information out there, it's difficult to keep up."
Other blogging sites include Blogger, LiveJournal, Mo'time, HaloScan, QuickTopic, and Bloglines, which is free to anyone with a Hotmail e-mail or MSN Messenger account.
Find a blog
Technorati, a blog-monitoring service, now tracks more than five million blogs. You can find a blog on just about any topic imaginable: politics, media, specific professions, and likely any personal interest you can think of. To find a blog that interests you, check out a blog directory such as Bloglines or Technorati.
Blog safely
For women concerned about security issues, Rennick suggests limiting personal information. Most sites do not list a home address and many do not even provide an e-mail address. Also remember that once it's published on the Web, anyone and everyone can read your blog. Keep your deepest, darkest secrets offline.
Popular personal journals
Blog Sisters
Blogging Mommies
Generation Exhausted
Daria's Life
A Typical Life
The Mother of All Blogs
Twist of Kate
Me
Motherhood Is Not For Wimps
Article written by Mara Gulens and adapted from an original piece from Microsoft Home Magazine.
