Log in, Blog on, Rock Out

Words: Philip Sherburne

Do you, uh, blog?

Blogging, just in case you haven't checked out the Internet since they put the Pets.com sock puppet to sleep, is perhaps the most significant phenomenon of the Web's post-bust years. Blogging has revolutionized the shape of content on the Web, and blogging's impact on various media -- from journalism and criticism to the personal essay and even amateur photography -- is just now making itself felt.

Blogs come in many shapes and sizes, but in its more or less universal form, a blog is a continually updated Web site, usually (but not necessarily) created and maintained by an individual, which consists primarily of commentary and links -- although the rise of photo blogs, moblogs (for photographs taken with mobile phones) and MP3 blogs has opened up the "blogosphere" to an expanded range of content. (The word "blog" is short for "weblog," which originally described the statistics reports that Web administrators used to track their sites; according to Wikipedia, the current usage of "weblog" was coined in 1997, with "blog" following a short two years later.)

The styles, audiences and topics of this "personal publishing" phenomenon vary almost as widely as the Internet itself. Teenagers and narcissists favor diaristic navel-gazing of the LiveJournal variety; so-called "warbloggers" have used the format since shortly after 9/11 to promote hawkish policy in the MidEast. There are media-centric blogs like Gawker and The Minor Fall, The Major Lift; celebrity blogs from the likes of Moby, William Gibson, and, um, Fred Durst; and, in the corner of the blogosphere I inhabit, blogs devoted to music criticism. There are even, according to the New York Times, "hipster bloggers," but we'll hope that trend is short-lived.

Far from just a vanity publishing platform, blogging has shifted the balance of power on the 'net. Back in the days of the dotcom boom, critics railed against the risk of an increasingly commercialized Internet in which corporations like AOL/Time Warner would win a virtual media monopoly. But where the top-down schemes of the dotcom heyday have collapsed, bloggers have flourished -- not unlike the return of the undergrowth after a wildfire destroys the forest canopy. Blogs have revitalized debate, shaped the format of traditional Web publications -- many of which have incorporated blogs into their own Web content -- and even catapulted some talented bloggers into careers in the print world.

With every new blog, the blogosphere gets more interesting. (Also, more cluttered, but don't think it's going supernova any time soon.) Here's how you can join the action.

Hosting and Self Publishing Solutions
Even if you don't already have your own Web site, it's easy to set up your own soapbox, thanks to free or inexpensive publishing solutions from the likes of Blogger, Typepad and Squarespace. Blogger, founded in 1999 and acquired by Google in 2003, is one of the most popular platforms. Long a nuts-and-bolts free service offering text-only hosting, a handful of templates -- that is, pre-designed layouts and color schemes -- and not much more, Blogger has recently relaunched with a simplified user interface, new features like e-mail and voice publishing (meaning that you can create entries directly from e-mail or even phone calls, in instances where you don't have Web access), and an expanded range of templates to give your site a slightly less generic look and feel.

Once you've registered and chosen your blog's name (which will result in a URL like http://myblog.blogspot.com), you'll be guided through the steps to choose your design scheme and specify a few other parameters, and at that point you're up and running. Without knowing a line of code, you really can go from being a read-only schmoe to having your first published text sitting up on the Web in about 15 minutes.

Typepad, like Blogger, is a one-stop, do-it-yourself tool, but added features come with a price. The basic package, at $4.95 a month, offers 50 MB of disk space for hosting photographs or audio content -- something Blogger sorely lacks. Plus and Pro packages ($8.95 and $14.95 a month, respectively), significantly boost storage space and bandwidth, include photo album templates and tools, and feature customizable layout templates. Squarespace, unlike Typepad, offers a no-frills, no-fee package with 20 MB of storage; advanced features and greater storage space are available for from $4.95 to $14.95 a month.

The makers of Typepad, Six Apart, also produce Moveable Type, a robust, extensible publishing platform for advanced users with their own server space. For examples of blogs created with Moveable Type, see Abe Burmeister's Abstract Dynamics, which hosts music and culture blogs from Sasha Frere-Jones, Joseph Patel, Jane Dark, Jessica Hopper, the photographer Jessica Miller, and myself.

Images and MP3s
Once upon a time, blogs were primarily text-only affairs, but photographs -- either original works or images grabbed from the Web -- are becoming increasingly central to the blogosphere; check Matt Ingram's loving scans of his rare record collection at Woebot or New Yorker critic Sasha Frere-Jones' snaps of city surfaces to see blogging in all its multimedia glory.

Blog*Spot, Blogger's free hosting service, doesn't host photos. If you're using Blogger and you want to display a photograph found elsewhere on the Web, you can do so with the appropriate image tag. But to upload your own photos, you'll need to have access to your own Web server or, alternately, use one of Typepad or Squarespace's services. (Blog*Spot Plus, Blogger's fee-based hosting service which allows for photos, is no longer issuing new accounts.) Typepad's customizable album designs, automatic image resizing and automatic thumbnail generation offer a particularly smooth way to incorporate large numbers of images into the format of your blog.

Logophobes and pictophiles more interested in uploading and displaying photographs can choose a straight photo-blog as well, such as those offered by Fotolog, and peripatetic voyeurs armed with mobile phone-cams can create "moblogs" at Zimoblog. But there's a tradeoff: they just don't look very slick, and if you're a photographer with a portfolio to show off, you won't likely be pleased with the presentation quality. But if all you want to do is post a daily pic of your pet, your latest culinary creation or your swingin' self, Fotolog or Zimoblog is more than enough to display the goods.

The newest multimedia trend in the blogosphere is MP3 blogging; any service with adequate storage and bandwidth (that is, the size of your files multiplied by the number of users who will access them every month) will allow you to create one. If you're getting into the MP3 blogging biz, though, beware: the RIAA and most record labels won't look kindly on you giving away their product for free. For an excellent example of an MP3 blog, see Matthew Perpetua's Fluxblog.

Anatomy of a Blog
Now that you've got your blog up and running, what do you do with it? Content is king, so the core of any blog will be your posts. What and how you write are up to you; some bloggers post long-form essays, some opt for quips and Letterman-style top 10 lists. Almost all bloggers, either occasionally or as their primary discursive mode, link material found on the Web, usually with some kind of commentary attached. This is where the blogosphere turns the Internet into a giant feedback loop: think of it as a newspaper's letters page, but without having to go through any editors to get published. Both Gawker and The Minor Lift, The Major Fall have built their reputations entirely on their keen eye for a salient (or salacious) link, adumbrated with commentary ranging from witty to all-out snarky. Root around in the links of a blogger like Simon Reynolds and you'll find an entire Algonquin roundtable discussion of interrelated bloggers feeding off of each others' thoughts. (It can get a bit one-uppy -- not to mention incestuous -- but what would the Internet be without ego?)

Activating the comment fields on your blog will only amplify the waveform of the feedback loop, allowing any reader, and not just other bloggers, to respond to what you've written. Reader comments can be one of the blogger's most satisfying experiences: I once received a response, months after I had posted about the late musician Arthur Russell, from Russell's parents -- needless to say, such experiences are rare in the print world. (Some publishing platforms are vulnerable to spammers who can cram comments fields full of "reader responses" that turn out to be advertisements for porn and generic Viagra, so keep a look out for suspicious postings; you can always delete them, or even close particular comment boxes if need be.)

Your list of links is the other major component of your blog: not only does it tell your audience what you think is worth reading, but once you've linked to other bloggers you respect, they're almost certain eventually to "track back" to your site and -- hopefully -- to link you in return, thus increasing your readership. Eventually, once you've written enough, readers will be directed to your blog via any salient terms that pop up in their Googlings; but links in to your site are the best way to ensure an audience. (And given the structure of Google's search rankings, the more links in to your site, the higher your placement in search returns.) Don't be afraid to be creative with conventions like links columns. Bloggers like Portland Mercury editor Julianne Shephard have poeticized the hyperlink by spinning a simple namecheck into phrases like, "[S]parkling brainiac Hua Hsu is patient with folks I'd be impaling with seven-inches." As always, the rule in blogland is to keep it fresh -- and to stretch the limits of the genre any way you can.

Are Your Ears Burning Yet?
Part of the fun of blogging is that, unlike print publication, you can get a pretty good idea of who is actually reading your work. Platforms like Typepad offer powerful statistical reporting, but even if you're using Blogger you can take advantage of free statistics trackers like those offered by Site Meter. Site Meter's counters, which are installed by cutting and pasting a few lines of code into your blog's source template track visits, page views, a rough geographical breakdown of readers and -- most importantly -- referral URLs. By tracking the later you can see, at a glance, which blogs or other Web sites have linked to your blog, and even see which search terms are leading users to you. Similarly, tools like Technorati's Link Cosmos generate a summary of all links into your blog -- an easy way to track who's talking about you.

The Tip of the Iceblog
All this is just the beginning, really; with a little dedication and a healthy dose of OCD, you can turn your blog into a full-time affair, updating it hourly, revising your links page with every new link in, and syndicating your content to other sites via feeds like the XML dialect RSS (which stands, helpfully, for "Really Simple Syndication"). Of course, burnout is a factor -- even the most committed bloggers tend to go through dormant phases. And of course, a little self-censorship isn't a bad idea: if you're griping about your boss, don't do it under your own name. Of course, if your blog habit really does eat you out of house and home (and job), take solace: Typepad offers a convenient way to post lists. Throw a wishlist from Amazon and an online grocery up on your site, and with a dedicated readership, you might never need to log off again.