Zakaria RMIDI

Casablanca Bloggers Program 2012

Blogging: Why and How§

OUTLINE

What is a blog? Where to find blogs?

Blogs’ Search Engines. Blogs’ Communities. Web-based Blogging Platforms. Social networks.

Create a blog Blogging platforms

Writing for the web The Inverted Pyramid

What is a blog?

What is a blog?

Blog a contraction of the term "web log".

Blogger is the person producing the blog.

Blogging is when you create the blog by posting an entry.

What is a blog?

A blog tends to be a website. Usually maintained by an individual but

sometimes by a group of people. Posts are usually displayed in reverse-

chronological order. Entries includes text, images, videos

and audio material.

Where to find blogs?

You can find blogs you want in:

1. Blogs’ Search Engines.2. Blogs’ Communities. 3. Web-based Blogging Platforms.4. Social networks.

Blogs’ search ingines

Technorati http://www.technorati.com/

Google Blog Search

http://blogsearch.google.com/

BlogScope http://www.blogscope.net/

IceRocket http://www.icerocket.com/

Blogs Communities

Blogs’ communities are usually web-based platforms where thousands of blogs exist.

These blogs are classified in term of categories: culture, politics, media, life style, literature, tourism, religion …etc.

These categories connect blogs and bloggers who share the same interest together.

Blogs Communities

Blog Catalog http://www.blogcatalog.com/ Blog Top Sites

http://www.blogtopsites.com/ Bloggapedia http://www.bloggapedia.com/ Blogged http://www.blogged.com/ Bloggernity http://www.bloggernity.com/

Web-based Blogging Platforms Dozens of Blogs’ platforms are available

online, for free, where you can:

Find blogs you like. Interact with blog authors. Share articles, pictures, videos…etc. Create your own blog.

- Blogger http://www.blogger.com/- Bloglines http://www.bloglines.com/- LiveJournal http://www.livejournal.com/- WordPress http://wordpress.com/- Over-Blog http://www.over-blog.com/- Xanga http://www.xanga.com/

Social Networks

You can also find blogs on social networks site such as: Facebook Twitter MySpace StumbleUpon Digg

Create a blog

To have a successful blog, think about:

1. The type of the content you want to deal with, the way it is exposed, references and sources.

2. One main theme and focus on it.3. The type of blog whether it is individual

or collective.4. An appropriate platform.5. An appropriate name for the blog.6. An appropriate design for the blog.7. A target audience to address.

http://www.problogger.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/picture-7.png

Blogger and Wordpress are the most popular web-based blogging platforms

WORDPRESS BLOGGER

A blogging platform provided by Google. It is easy to use and highly linked to a number of google services.

Because it is owned by a corporation like google, it doesn’t make you fully independent to own your blog.

Wordpress is an open-source web-based and blogging platform

It creates a back-up of your data and in case you lose control of your blog you can get it back.

With Wordpress you own your blog and nobody has the right to delete it even in the case of a government interference.

Writing for the web

The Structure of Story-telling Traditional Media:

The traditional journalistic writing is based on a linear story-telling. It is often called “The Inverted Pyramid”.

This structure of story-telling gives to the reader a summary lead and details in descending order of importance.

The Inverted Pyramid1- Main 5 points of the article (WH questions)

2- Further essential information.

What? •What is the story? What happened? •An event (an accident, a festival, a murder, a concert, a conference…)

Where? •Where did the story take place? •The street, a stadium, a university, a hotel, an administration…

When? •When did the story happened?•Yesterday, last week, last year, this morning, in the evening…

Why? •Why did it happen? The causes and the reasons behind the story.

How? •How did it happen? The way the story took place.

The Structure of Story-telling Online Media: The story-telling adopts a multi-dimensional

structure (Hypertext) in online newspapers and blogs.

It deconstructs the linear story-telling process to reconstruct it again into series of independent elements, but still related.

It helps building contextual links among ideas. It allows the reader to pick his/her own path

through the story. It allows the writer to express his thoughts

without being devoted to a specific order.

The Structure of Story-telling

Paragraphs on blogs should be relatevily short and include no more than 2 or 3 sentences.

Each paragraph should contain a single idea.

The idea should be presented at the beginning of the block of text.

THANK YOU