Contents 1 Description of Weblogs and Weblog Technology 1.1 What is a Weblog 1.2 What is Trackback 1.3 What is an RSS feed 1.4 What is Quickpost 1.5 What are tags 1.6 What are gravatars 1.7 What is a linkblog 1.8 What is moblogging 1.9 What is WebDAV 1.10 What is del.icio.us 1.11 What is Flickr

[edit] Description of Weblogs and Weblog Technology

[edit] What is a Weblog

Weblogs, or blogs, are a way of publishing to the web one idea at a time. By simplifying the process of publishing, letting authors create posts easily, and making it simple to link to related ideas on the web, blogs make it easy to update a website while still making sure your words retain a clear, personal voice.

The simplicity and immediacy of weblogs has made them extremely popular in a very short period of time, and they're being used today by everyone from media outlets wanting to spread their message to ordinary citizens wanting to keep in touch with friends and family around the world.

As the weblog medium has evolved, it's become evident that the collective posts which make up the millions of existing weblogs, along with the links that they provide to each other and to other relevant content on the web, represent an important new outlet for expression and communication. Best of all, it's easy for anyone with basic internet skills to create a blog or to add one to an existing site.

[edit] What is Trackback

Trackback is a means for one Web page to let another Web page know that it's been linked to. Confused? Yes. Trackback is one of those things that is hard to understand until you use it. But, once used, it's potential is quickly realized.

Think of Trackback as a way to comment on your blog about another blog's entry.

And, the greatest part is, there should be no extra work on your part. You merely include a link in your blog entry back to the original blog entry you are commenting on, and the Trackback occurs automatically.

[edit] What is an RSS feed

RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication" or "Rich Site Summary" (depending on who you ask). It is a way to include your blog's content and general description into a machine readable XML format. There are a lot of uses for RSS; the most common being to feed news aggregators such as Bloglines and NewsMonster.

[edit] What is Quickpost

QuickPost is a bookmark you include in your web browser that makes it easy to post to your own blog. All you need to do is click on your QuickPost bookmark, and a separate window pops up allowing you to immediately post to your weblog. As an extra benefit, QuickPost analyses the web page you are currently reading and includes a link back to that post in your blog entry. This makes it easy to comment on other web pages.

Interested in whatever web page you are reading, hit your QuickPost bookmark and immediately create a blog entry pointing back to the article.

To set up your QuickPost bookmark, log in to your blog and click on the link located on the lower right entitled "Set up QuickPost".

[edit] What are tags

When you are creating an entry, there are several fields available such as "Title," "Primary Category," "Entry Body," "Extended Entry," etc. One of those fields is labeled "Tags." "Tags" is just another way of saying "Categories." Anything you type into the tags field becomes a category (each name of the category being separated by a space). This makes it much easier to create and assign categories to entries quickly. If you would like to assign a category/tag with a space in it's name, surround the phrase in double quotes.

To read more about the tagging plugin, read The Tags Power Tool for Movable Type (but note, we do not override the Keywords like their documentation says; we use a totally different field actually labeled Tags; the Keywords field remains and functions as normal). To read more about the concept of "tagging" and folksonomy, start out the Wikipedia pages for them: Tagging, Folksonomy.

[edit] What are gravatars

Gravatars are "global avatars."

[edit] What is a linkblog

A "LinkBlog" is a section of a person's weblog that consists mostly of quickly posted links with some optional, quickly-written, short text. Contrast this to a "normal" blog entry, which is, usually, meatier; consisting of more original content. Linkblogs are where you would say, "hey, look at this!" on your blog.

Jeremy Zawodny, of Yahoo! fame, has an excellent example of a linkblog at Jeremy Zawondy's linkblog.

[edit] What is moblogging

"Moblogging" stands for "Mobile Blogging" ? posting blog entries from your mobile phone while you're on a plane, uploading pictures from your camera phone while sitting in a cafe in NYC, or even scribbling something up on your tablet PC while you are in a meeting. Think of it as "Blogging on the Go."

More information is at WikiPedia:Moblogging.

[edit] What is WebDAV

WebDAV is an Internet protocol just like HTTP or POP3. And, while HTTP is for transferring files and POP3 is for email, WebDAV is for creating/editing/removing files from remote Internet locations. Technically speaking, it's an extension to HTTP.

WebDAV allows a user to access an Internet site just like a person would access a hard drive (or CIFS or NFS mounted disk). It's supported by almost all common publishing software suites and operating systems including MS Office, Dreamweaver, Frontpage, Windows, Mac OSX, Linux, etc.

[edit] What is del.icio.us

del.icio.us is a bookmark management web service.

[edit] What is Flickr

Flickr is on online digital photo management service. What separates Flickr is its focus on collaboration, its added features, and the ease with which the contents of your Flickr profile can be integrated with other applications (like your blog). Flickr comes with tools that let you organize your photos, perform basic editing procedures, tag/label/categorize your photos, let your friends and family label or comment on your photos, and more. They even have some very nice desktop software that make it easy to upload your photos. Sign up for a Flickr account and give it a try!