Blog, short for Web Log, is a website with supercharged discussion forums. The early popular web or internet, not the original web used in academia and government/military, was limited in how interactive the websites was for users. You could leave a comment on some websites, but the connections and interoperability was limited – especially as we unfairly compare it to today’s websites and blogs. Blogs open a dialog online that is open to all to see, for all to learn from universally and create a massive interconnection of resources.
Still not really sure what is the difference between a blog and a website? Blogs are websites, but websites are not blogs. Let’s refer to each in this way:
Website – digital product catalog without a customer service or technical support features
Blog – block party with friends and neighbors sharing what they know on a topic
So a website can’t be successful without a blog? Not entirely true. Yes, blogs are changing the way we use the web, but blogs are not the solution to all web needs. Traditional websites are viable for a great deal of what we do on the web. The Department of Motor Vehicles is a traditional website, and generally ignores what its users think of the site or need from it. Amazon.com has become a traditional website, but is becoming more “social”. EBay is a traditional site now as well, but has along the way paved a course for social media in general to grow through the creation of the world’s largest yard sale. What each of these sites have in common, besides being traditional websites, is that they don’t use blogs on their sites in general yet. There are many many blogs about these sites, but to my knowledge there is no blog component to their sites yet.
Getting started with blogs is easy with so many tools and information available.
Blogger from Google - Free and easy
Yahoo - Free and easy...good luck finding the link though. I gave up on it.
WordPress - Most popular pro tool, but requires some savvy and experience...and a hosting account.
TypePad - Seth Godin's tool of choice. Easy to use with good features. Inexpensive and flexible.
