Blog Writing

A blog is a kind of website, usually maintained by its owner on a day to to day basis. It is really the new age cyber file. Blog and blogging both define the process of maintaining or adding new content to the blog. There are different kinds of blogs, as different as the number of people who write them. Those who write and maintain blogs are called bloggers and they are a very diverse lot. They are from different ends of the planet, speak different languages, though most of them blog in English, they think differently but blogging binds them together. The one thing they have in common is the need to communicate.

Some bloggers like to blog on a particular subject, like gardening or cricket or politics or photography while others use them to blog about themselves; like a cyber-diary. There are different types of blogs and each of them are distinction because of the distinct style of the blogger.

The Personal blog is the most common kind of blog. It is, like the name suggests, personal, and the blogger can choose to share it with the people he wants to. This kind of blog might be a reflection of the bloggers thoughts, or it could be a day to day narration of the incidents in his life, or the detailed account of his life. Not all bloggers want to be read. For some bloggers it is enough just to be able to reflect on life by writing. For some, though, communication with others is a must. They enjoy the interaction with other bloggers. Blogs have an interactive format which allows readers of blogs to leave comments on each other’s blogs.

Microblog is another type of blog that features very short posts. Its beauty lies in the fact that it is detailed yet precise and captures a moment in time. Some social websites like Twitter, Orkut allow bloggers to share thoughts and feelings instantaneously with family and friends and are speedier than email or writing. There are Subject blogs that focus on a particular subjects like photography, cooking, gardening, quilting. There are blogs like ‘army moms’ that are blogs created by mom’s whose sons are in the services. There are mom blogs and even expectant mother blogs. Educational blogs, music blogs, niche blogs, project blogs, fashion blogs you name it and its out there. Some blogs focus on a particular subject. A travel blog focuses on travelling and a cookery blog on cooking. You can add pictures to your blogs. You can even add music to your blog so every time someone visits your blog they get to listen to what you have been listening to. It is a very cool feature.

A blog that has videos is called a Vlog and one that has links is called a Link log, one with sketches a Sketch log and one with photos a Photo log. Tumble logs are blogs that are mixed with media and have shorter posts. What makes blogging really interesting is the addition of widgets to the biog. What are widgets? Widgets are easy to use. They are simple and handy ways to add some panache to your blog. Feed count widget displays the number of visitors to your blog, Feed it displays the real time traffic data in your blogs sidebar, Flixn displays a stream directly from your webcam so your blog visitors can always see what you are up to, Rock you Horoscope shows horoscope, and clock link displays time in various time zones. There are a whole lot of widgets out there. They give your blog that cool look, even an edge over other blogs but remember moderation is the key. Don’t overdo it. There is just one drawback to adding widgets to a blog and that is that sometimes it takes forever to load the blog because there are so many applications to be loaded and time is of the essence in blogging. Bloggers visit many blogs and are not going to wait for a blog that takes forever to open. So keep those widgets to the minimum.

Blogs are a wonderful way for budding authors and poets to test the waters. They cannot take the place of the publisher but it sure beats having your manuscript lie for months on end with the publisher with no way of knowing if he even looked at it. With a blog you may not always have an educated audience but at least you will be read, that can be very encouraging to a novice writer.

There are blog events where you can participate and all the participants are showcased in a blog especially for that purpose. for eg: Cookery blogs host events around particular ingredients, or particular cooking methods. Let’s say the event is about baking, then all participating bloggers send in their recipes with pictures to the person who is hosting the event and on the stipulated date the host puts up all these blogs with pictures which back-link to the original blogger’s blog. It’s a wonderful way to get reacquainted with old bloggers and meet with new bloggers.

Its amazing how blogs can link people around the world. When you follow a personal blog its almost like experiencing the writer intimately; the bloggers thoughts, his actions, his photos all are real. This is not a person who is a fragment of your imagination. This is someone real.