Blog Terminology
My friend Steve is starting up a blog,
so I thought I'd bring him up to speed on some of the
terminology
My friend and former co-worker Steve has decided
to join the blogosphere. This is exciting news to anyone who knows him, as he
is a really bright guy. Combine that with excellent writing skills, razor sharp
wit, and a knack for telling gutbustingly funny stories and you have the makings
of a good blogger. The blogosphere, like any geek endeavor, is rife with its
own nomenclature. In my effort to help him out, I decided I'd try and define a
few of the many blogging terms, and I thought I might as well post it for
everyone to see (since many in my family are still confused as to what exactly a
blog is).
Blog: Short for weblog. This can be somewhat hard to define, as it ranges from a sort of online diary all the way to political analyses. Essentially it means a site that is updated frequently and is written from a personal or opinionated point of view.
Blogosphere: The universe of blogs. For example, "the blogosphere is all ablaze on this" would mean that lots of bloggers are posting on this topic (like Dan Rather, for instance). Or how I used it above, "Steve has decided to join the blogosphere" means he will start blogging.
Permalink: This is a permanent link to a specific post. Since blogs are updated so often, you can almost never reference something someone said without it becoming stale. Permalinks allow other bloggers to link to your stuff and link them directly to the post they are talking about (rather than linking to a page and telling people to try and scroll down and find it).
Trackback: This is one of the coolest things about blogging. When you see someone posting on something, and you want to argue with them, or you want to link back to them, or you want to add your thoughts, etc. - you can put up a post and link to them (using their permalink). Then, you can send a trackback ping, which includes some details about your post (title, abstract, permalink), and it notifies their software to list you as a trackback. This puts a link to your post and quick synopsis on their blog, so their readers can follow it over to your post. This rocks for a couple reasons - first, it allows for an ongoing exchange and conversation to be followed by readers of both blogs, second, it lets less known bloggers have access to large bloggers readers (I've gotten a bunch of hits by trackbacking some of my idols with huge readership)
Comments: Obviously this is a familiar word, and its what you'd expect. Good blogs have the ability for anyone to put comments on each post, thus allowing the people reading to correct, agree, disprove, etc what you post. We'll have to get you set up to use Haloscan - which is a company that provides Comments and Trackback functionality for you. It's what I use, and its pretty easy to integrate with iBlog. In fact, I should probably just copy you my templates, and change out a few details.
Troll: Trolls are people who don't really frequent a site or engage in discussion - they just have their partisan hack download and as soon as they see a post, they comment on it without thinking. Or they are simply obnoxious people who only seek to be contentious and stir up trouble. The big sites use software to block trolls. You probably won't need to, unless you get big. The main reasons for mentioning this is to say be careful when commenting on other people's blogs - you don't want to be perceived as a Troll who's just trying to drive some traffic to his site. That goes for trackbacks too - only post a trackback if you're on topic and you link back to the original post.
Aggregator/RSS Feed: RSS is an XML feed that allows syndication. It lets sites grab headlines and links easily. Aggreagtors grab a number of feeds into one location - for instance, I use my.yahoo.com's RSS Aggregator. It grabs all the latest posts from all my favorite blogs, so I can see the headlines and click on them when I see an interesting sounding post. It also lets me look at one page and see whether or not any of my favorites has posted lately - rather than hitting 5-10 different sites.
Blogroll: a blogroll is one of those things that people put on their list of links. Essentially its just a long list of links to other bloggers. Generally this is done so that like minded (or opposite minded) bloggers can reciprocate links and thus raise their google-osity and share readers. This also goes hand in hand with "alliances" and "leagues" - a group of bloggers that all share the same ideas or goals and agree to blogroll all of the members. Usually there is also an aggregator involved, so people can read the aggregator and get opinions from all members of the alliance. For instance, I'm a member of the League of Reformed Bloggers - a group of people who blog from a Christian perspecitve that is heavily informed from the Reformation. You can see all the links, including links to the aggregator, on my rt hand nav.
Any suggestions of terms that I've forgotten? Anything you've read somewhere but didn't understand? List your own definitions or questions in the comments link below.
Blog: Short for weblog. This can be somewhat hard to define, as it ranges from a sort of online diary all the way to political analyses. Essentially it means a site that is updated frequently and is written from a personal or opinionated point of view.
Blogosphere: The universe of blogs. For example, "the blogosphere is all ablaze on this" would mean that lots of bloggers are posting on this topic (like Dan Rather, for instance). Or how I used it above, "Steve has decided to join the blogosphere" means he will start blogging.
Permalink: This is a permanent link to a specific post. Since blogs are updated so often, you can almost never reference something someone said without it becoming stale. Permalinks allow other bloggers to link to your stuff and link them directly to the post they are talking about (rather than linking to a page and telling people to try and scroll down and find it).
Trackback: This is one of the coolest things about blogging. When you see someone posting on something, and you want to argue with them, or you want to link back to them, or you want to add your thoughts, etc. - you can put up a post and link to them (using their permalink). Then, you can send a trackback ping, which includes some details about your post (title, abstract, permalink), and it notifies their software to list you as a trackback. This puts a link to your post and quick synopsis on their blog, so their readers can follow it over to your post. This rocks for a couple reasons - first, it allows for an ongoing exchange and conversation to be followed by readers of both blogs, second, it lets less known bloggers have access to large bloggers readers (I've gotten a bunch of hits by trackbacking some of my idols with huge readership)
Comments: Obviously this is a familiar word, and its what you'd expect. Good blogs have the ability for anyone to put comments on each post, thus allowing the people reading to correct, agree, disprove, etc what you post. We'll have to get you set up to use Haloscan - which is a company that provides Comments and Trackback functionality for you. It's what I use, and its pretty easy to integrate with iBlog. In fact, I should probably just copy you my templates, and change out a few details.
Troll: Trolls are people who don't really frequent a site or engage in discussion - they just have their partisan hack download and as soon as they see a post, they comment on it without thinking. Or they are simply obnoxious people who only seek to be contentious and stir up trouble. The big sites use software to block trolls. You probably won't need to, unless you get big. The main reasons for mentioning this is to say be careful when commenting on other people's blogs - you don't want to be perceived as a Troll who's just trying to drive some traffic to his site. That goes for trackbacks too - only post a trackback if you're on topic and you link back to the original post.
Aggregator/RSS Feed: RSS is an XML feed that allows syndication. It lets sites grab headlines and links easily. Aggreagtors grab a number of feeds into one location - for instance, I use my.yahoo.com's RSS Aggregator. It grabs all the latest posts from all my favorite blogs, so I can see the headlines and click on them when I see an interesting sounding post. It also lets me look at one page and see whether or not any of my favorites has posted lately - rather than hitting 5-10 different sites.
Blogroll: a blogroll is one of those things that people put on their list of links. Essentially its just a long list of links to other bloggers. Generally this is done so that like minded (or opposite minded) bloggers can reciprocate links and thus raise their google-osity and share readers. This also goes hand in hand with "alliances" and "leagues" - a group of bloggers that all share the same ideas or goals and agree to blogroll all of the members. Usually there is also an aggregator involved, so people can read the aggregator and get opinions from all members of the alliance. For instance, I'm a member of the League of Reformed Bloggers - a group of people who blog from a Christian perspecitve that is heavily informed from the Reformation. You can see all the links, including links to the aggregator, on my rt hand nav.
Any suggestions of terms that I've forgotten? Anything you've read somewhere but didn't understand? List your own definitions or questions in the comments link below.
Posted: Fri - November 19, 2004 at 06:00 PM | | | | | | |
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