Device blogging

Some day, I think blogging will over come emails and voicemails in popularity. One thing I learned about blogging is that it can be classified by device. Blogs can be defined by the device used to compose it. A blog written by a mobile devise like a mobile phone or PDA is called a moblog. This would be fueled by the new phones and PDAs coming out, such as the new iphone and blackberry cell phones. Right now I feel that blogging for me is much more efficient on a computer's keyboard. I am a much faster typer on my computer keyboard than on my phones key pad.

Check out my blog featuring my favorite recent videos.

What's the Point?

I am not one to blog...it is part of technology I have not explored. I think blogging is kinda weird, but I did learn that it is not just used by people as "self expression", however, it is used by businesses as a tool for marketing, communication with employees and other miscellaneous resources. I found that rather interesting.

So, what am I gonna do with my blog? Well...it's not like I have a business to promote so I might as well use it as a form of "self expression" or whatever.



This is a ridiculous video from youtube that brings me great joy. =)

To Blog or Not to Blog!!

Hmmm...who knew there were so many videos on blogging?!?!

London Tube

remember to mind the gap...

I found this blog in search for London, since I will be traveling to England in January. This blog is titled the "London Underground" tube blog. Basically, Annie Mole, the writer of this blog, posts new information about experiences and events that happen on the tube in London everyday. There are many funny stories that she shares along with a few serious events such as a person falling onto the tracks and being rescued by volunteers. Annie also blogs about things such as underground London fashion victims and posts pictures of such people. I think that the purpose of this blog is simply to share the pleasures of riding the very interesting tube in London. The writer must ride often, considering she posts something new with a picture almost everyday.

daniELLE's post!

Blogs are used for many reasons. I found a lot of personal blogs are being used just to inform people on their lives. A blog I found very interesting was The Celebrity Blog. I am addicted to the "celebrity gossip", I could read those gossip magazines daily, as a matter of fact I sometimes do! But when I came across blogs that share pretty much the same information as magazines such as, In Touch or Life & Style. This is a cheaper way of reading what's going on in the "celebrity world". Check out the latest gossip!

More Than A Memory

I really like the new Garth Brooks song, More Than A Memory. I was searching YouTube to find a video of the song and I found a video of someone else, not Garth Brooks, singing More Than A
Memory. I really enjoyed the video so if you want to view it here you go...

Google Docs in Plain English

i'm blogging

Searching Wikipedia I discovered that a blog is website that includes commentary from a group of people. There are many different topics people blog about, such as sports, business, politics, news, food, and much more. I didn't really know what to talk about in this blog. As I searched the Internet about blogging I came across certain benefits of blogging. Most benefits I found related to business. Some of these benefits include meeting new people and starting a community where one's expertise can be shared. Blogging is easier to do than creating a website, and it also costs less. I found this information in an article written by Darell Zahorsky. Other benefits of blogging, that doesn't directly relate to business, includes mentoring, education, self promotion, education, and the lists goes on. I wanted to add a movie but I didn't think I could find one on this topic. So I thought I would add a movie of a guitar player named Eric Mongrain. He plays his acoustic guitar like a piano and it is amazing.

Blogging Background

Apparently, the act of web logging (or, as we all know, blogging) began some time ago. As the world wide web became popular, people began writing about the subject they knew most about: themselves. Online diaries and personal websites made way, through the years, for blogs. Today blogs are still used for personal diaires, as well as news reporting, random info based on various interests, and editorial-type opinion writing. To save you from reading a boring list of historical stuff that you might not care about (and to save me from writing it), just check out Wikipedia if you're interested.

What has recently caught my interest (just because I can't help it and I'm a writing nerd) is the way blogs are being used for what is known as "citizen journalism" or "grassroots journalism." Ordinary people who have a passion for current events and a plethora of opinions have taken on roles as journalists and begun reporting various angles on various stories. CyberJournalist.net has created a list of what they call "citizen media efforts." Although citizen journalists cannot necessarily report news without copying from sources (simply because most people don't have their own inside reporters overseas or Associated Press connections), they can still publish their opinions about the news, and they're using the popularity of blogging to accomplish what they need and want.

If you're interested in citizen journalism, check out SourceWatch for information. Or check out the ever-reliable Wikipedia definition.

An interesting YouTube video on citizen journalism:

Mainstay CD Release.

On 9.25.07 there is a concert at Club Three Degrees in Minneapolis, MN. It is probably the best concert of the century (ok, so its a slight exaggeration). The band Mainstay is playing their CD release show. They are releasing their sophomore album "Become Who You Are." It is going to be a great time for everyone, young and old, so everyone should come. The show starts at 7:00pm. Tickets are $12 with a CD and $7 without.



Click here to visit their myspace and get more information on tour dates and

To preview some songs from the upcoming CD click here.

Below is a video of the guys having fun at a farm in Texas.

This is my first time ever being on a blog let alone post anything so I am excited to learn more about how it works! Here is some history on how blogging came about.

Brad Fitzpatrick, an early blogger

The modern blog evolved from the online diary, where people

would keep a running account of their personal lives. Most such writers called themselves diarists, journalists, or journalers.Smme of them called themselves "escribitionists". The Open Pages webring included members of the online-journal community. Jerry Pournelle, who began eleven years of personal blogging in 1994 while a student at Swarthmore College, is generally recognized as one of the earliest bloggers, as is Jerry Pournelle. Another early blog was Wearable Wireless Webcam, an online shared diary of a person's personal life combining text, video, and pictures transmitted live from a wearable computer and Eye Tap device to a web site in 1994[6]. This practice of semi-automated blogging with live video together with text, was referred to as sousveillance, and such journals were also used as evidence in legal matters.

I got some of this information from Wikipedia

My favorite tv show...

There are many different types of blogs. They are used to help people express their feelings or interests. They can somewhat be like an "online diary". There are a variety of different categories people blog about, they pretty much can be used for talking about anything.

I first learned about blogs because my cousin is really big into them. She's been blogging for a couple years now. She first started when she went on a Mission's trip to China and it was a way for us to communicate with her and keep updated on the events and activities she was doing while away. Her blog was really the only blog I was familiar with prior to searching around on the internet for blogs related to my favorite things.



After looking at a couple of different blogs, I would have to say my favorites dealt with fashion, New York City, Broadway, television, and movies. I really enjoyed reading the blogs relating to my favorite television shows, for example So You Think You Can Dance. I loved how it broke down each episode and critiqued how each of the dancers did. It's fun seeing peoples different opinions on whether or not they thought a dancer did good or bad. I love the variety of dance styles that are shown throughout the show and I'm super bummed I have to wait until next summer to watch it again, since it's only a summer run show. I would have to say my favorite couple this season was Neil and Lauren. The following video was probably my favorite dance that was performed. I can only wish I was as good as they are but inevitably without practicing or experience, I guess just watching the show will have to do for now.

Travel Blogs

Many blogs pertain to a person's personal experiences in life. They are a great way to display your thoughts and feelings about a recent event or lesson learned in life. These travel blogs are also titled Travel Journals, Travelogues, and Travel Diaries.

My first experience with blogging was when I studied abroad in Europe for a semester and found that blogging, over email, allowed us to tell friends and family back home what we were up to in a quick and fun way. Our Europe Term's blog was: www.xanga.com/bethelu


This past summer I traveled to Peru on my own, with quite a smaller group of people. I wish that I would have had more internet access, because I think that blogging would have been a great way to keep friends updated on my trip back home, since we ran into many complications along the way pertaining to both sicknesses and governmental complications to name a few. With many great stories of our experiences in traveling and seeing God's glory time and time again I would have been able to quickly jot them down online rather than try to remember them when I was home and just had quick 5minute catch-ups with people about my trip. Friends of Peru

Basically, bloggers are everywhere. I just got sick of looking up sites/links to new blogs because they are all over the place!!!! Blogging as a career?!?! How successful are they? How do they measure success? How many people look at their site? These two links are two different people, Tom and Chris (we're on a first name basis, obviously...) who blog for a living. That puts a new twist on working in your pajamas...

http://www.spot-on.com/

SiliconValleyWatcher.com

The Latest Technology

Today was the first time I have ever blogged. I think this is really weird. So I found a blog about the new iPod jeans: Levi's RedWire DXL iPod Jeans. The iPod's are removable for washing. This is good. So they cost about $200. They are very popular in the UK, but they have not caught on in the US yet. It is supposed to be catchy because the newest iPod has two new features. One is a navigation system. The other is electronic earbuds that clip onto the pants.

I also found a blog about the new technology called Sync. This is a voice activated communication and entertainment system that can be installed into cars. You can use it to call people, listen to music on your iPod, and many other things.

Alright, I'm coming forward now to admit that I have no idea what blogging is. I mainly use the internet to check email, classes, etc... so this is all new. So I figured I would start out my blog exploring what blogging is and what one does with a blog.


One can pretty much blog on anything they desire.

• There are various types of blogs, and the way the content is delivered differs.

Here are a few types I discovered:

• Genre:
• Most often personal blogs focus on certain subjects, such as travel, fashion, or politics.
  
• Media:
• These types of blogs are mainly comprised of videos, music, sketches, photos and art.
• By device:
• Blogs can also be defined by which type of device was used to compose it. A blog written by a mobile device such as a cellular telephone or PDA is called a moblog.
  
• Private:
• A blog can also be private, with a business purpose. These are either used to help the communication of a corporation or externally for marketing.

There, of course, are many other types of blogs out there, for example, if you just google 'blogs', 447,000,000 links to websites appear (if you try it now, you may even discover more links!). It is incredible the amount of information, however personal or impersonal the information is, its out there. Welcome to the fantastic world wide web... where you can discover and educate yourself on pretty much anything and everything.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-04-17-technology-coping_N.htm

"I always knew the Internet was very powerful, just not to this extent," Chiang, who lives in suburban Washington, D.C., said in a telephone interview.

http://www.soulcast.com/tag/coping

Travel Blogs!

In researching blog sites on the web, there are many people that post blogs about the places that they have been in the travel blog. There are millions of ways that one can blog about places where they have been by doing journals about a certain day, putting pictures up, and also telling other people the restaurants or night spots or favorite places that they have been in that certain city. let's say if you were planning a trip to paris you could look up different places in france that people have been and what the highlights are. I think it is pretty cool that people blog about their experiences and what they have gone through. I have found that you can look up any place in the world and somewhere on some website someone has blogged about it. I think that more often people should put up pictures of the places that they have been to, this would help me understand where they have been because by having pictures it is easier to picture the place in my mind. Since blogging about trips and vactions online is so popular, there are so many different sites to blog on such as blog on travel.com

The consequences blogging...

While the idea of blogging seems to be fairly harmless... the consequences can be large. Blogging has forced indiviuals to be brought before national courts with issues such as defamation or liability. The decision of the courts have been both in favor and not in favor of the defendant. But nonetheless some have been sentanced as a result of their "harmless" blogging.

Blogging has also become a problem in the workplace. The fear of employers is that their employees will cause employee branding. Many individuals have been fired from their jobs as a result of their bloggin activity.

Blogging has also weaved itself into the world of politics... and yes, it has caused problems there as well. For example, two Chinese men in Signapore were inprisioned as a result of their anti-Muslim comments that they had posted on their blogs.

Moral of the story....what happens on your blog does NOT stay on your blog. Blogs are open to the public. Whether you consider this to be a good or bad thing, is up to you. But as you sit and blog away, you should remember that you are not only blogging to yourself... you are blogging to the world.

What the Kids are Blogging about these days...

This might be my favorite blog on the web. It's run by a former roommate of mine, along with some of his friends. It's a perfect example of the wide range of things people will make blogs about. They call it the "Blog of the Dead." It's about--that's right--zombies, and possible zombie survival techniques (it's kind of an extreme example of the "Be Prepared" motto of the Boy Scouts).
These guys take their stuff seriously, and that's why I love reading this blog. You get a sense that they really know what they're talking about, while being aware the whole time of the absurdity of the subject matter.
I'm sure there are stranger blogs out there, but this one is so well put together and tongue-in-cheek that I think it's the one most worth checking out.

Random blog ramblings

Well, well, I did a little research and found that Jorn Barger was the man who coined the term "weblog." So there that is. Another random blog fact is that some NC students at NC State are facing punishment for breaking the school's alcohol "law" because a faculty logged onto one of their facebook accounts that had links to pictures of them drinking. whoops...

According to marketer Baron Lowery, "Group blogs tend to have a theme and provide insight into community perspective of a product." So, our little group blog will allow us to "provide insight into community perspective of a product" or in our case perspective of blogs.

Blogs are easily accessable and a wide variety of blogs exist. My favorite feature of blogging is uploading videos, I just think that's swell.

I like Paramore, so, here is an acoustic set

Blog Extravaganza

Blogs are out there for anything and everything. I decided to find out how many of my interests I could find a blog for. As I expected, there were a plethora of different ones for each interest, created by people with similar interests. Posted below are links to a few...



Star Wars



Movie Blog



Skiing



Some sites like Blog Catalog make it easy by providing users a "blog search engine."



Blogs display information in unique ways, such as photos, videos and stories. The thing you get with movie blogs that you don't with regular websites is unofficial information (rumors / spoilers) and a fan's perspective. The writing is more informal and often a compilation of many different sources. Just to prove I can, I'll add a photo to this post.



Click on the photo for a surprise!

my first blog ever! :)

This is my first blog and my first research with blogging and from today I learned that blogs are a trend for the younger generations and that 90% of bloggers are under the age of 30! The most popular age range for bloggers are between 13-19 years old.

Motivations for blogging include social commentary, personal journal, carefree thinking and community.

A few ethical debates concerning blogging are blogging bias, rumors and gossip, hoaxes and the effect of blogs on accuracy in mainstream media.

I also learned a few guidelines to follow by when blogging:

-Publish as fact only that which you believe to be true.
-If material exists online, link to it when you reference it.
-Publicly correct any misinformation.
-Write each entry as if it could not be changed; add to, but do not rewrite or delete, any entry.
-Disclose any conflict of interest.
-Note questionable and biased sources.

Muse Blog

One of my favorite Blogs to check out online is for one of my favorite bands-Muse. Muse is an alternative rock band from the UK. Muse posts their Blog online through Myspace.com as a way to get information to their fans. I check Muse' blog on Myspace every once in a while to check up on tour dates and events the band is taking part in. The Blog gives information to those who are interested in coming to shows on how to get tickets. The Blog also keeps fans updated on where to watch music videos for Muse and where to download Muse' music online. It is a fun and informative way for fans of Muse to stay up to date on what is going on with their favorite band. If you havent listened to Muse already, you should. To check out Muse' Myspace page, click here! To more specifically check out their Blog, click here!

Below is Muse performing my favorite song of theirs- Starlight.

Dance Blogs

Dancing for the Lord









This link takes you to a Christian-lyrical-dance blog. I came across this blog and it was pretty cool to see that more people like to dance or the Lord.

http://dancing-aunties.blogspot.com/

Today as i looked at this blog about worship dance, i saw dances from different countries which was very powerful.

The youtube videos below is of Bethel University's own chapel dance team.

Blog History

Blogs (shorthand for web log) really have only come into being within the last decade. Online journals and diaries were a sort of early form of the blog, but did not have the popularity that blogs do today. It has really been within the last six years that blogs have exploaded in popularity, becoming another componant to the mass media.

A typical blog focuses one general topic (politics, homemaking, cars, etc.) or serves as an online journal. Witin a blog, things such as pictures, video clips, and weblinks can be added. In addition, there are entire search engines dedicated to searching for specific blogs.

One of the reasons that blogs are so popular is that they are an uncensored form of media: a blogger is free to publish his own opinions and views on things without any regulations. This aspect of the blog has especially opened up a whole new realm for the politically opinionated. This freedom has had a downside: there have been numerous cases of employees being fired over inapropriate information conveyed via their blog, as well as bloggers getting in political trouble after writing apparently slanderous or offensive material.

One of the blogs that I found interesting was designersblock.blogspot, a blog concerned with photography. I also added in one of my favorite clips from The Office.

All about blogs

Today I researched Blogs!

Blog comes from the words Web log and they squished it all together to form the word blog. The word blog was was coined by Peter Merholz in 1997 but the idea of blogs have been around a lot longer than that. The type of blogging that we are working with was developed from the online diary which was where people would keep track of their daily lives.



There are many blogging websites. The largest right now is Technorati. As of May 2007 it had more than 71 million blogs that it was tracking. Google, Yahoo and other search engines also have there own way for searching for blogs.

There are blogs about everything under the sun from entertainment, music, sports, art or television. People use blogs to learn whats new in the news, to keep in touch with friends across the country or to talk about their favorite band. Some blogs are about absolutely ridiculous topics like the hokey poky or monkeys or stupid things that people do to get attention. Others about really deep topics. You can find a blog to talk about anything that you want to talk about and if there is not one that suites your fancy you can always create your own.


The one blog that I know about it one that my paster has. I had never checked it out before today, I just hear him mention it in his sermons every once in awhile. I figured for this class it might be a good place to start exploring what a blog is all about. Not only does he use it to update the church on things that are happening but he just shares his thoughts. Not necessarily on what is happening in his sermon series but just on life. It has an "about me" section where you can learn just a little bit about who he is and what he does. Then there is a section of links to related sites such as our church website and other Christian websites. Then there is a list of all his previous blogs. The most recent 4 blogs are all open for you to read right there and it tells you when they were posted and how many people have commented on them. I really like my pastor and so I think that this is a nice resource to kind of get to hear what he thinks on more things even if I can not be at church every Sunday because I am up here at school.

This is a picture of my pastor Phil
click on his picture to go to his blog

First Blog Assignment.

This is my first blog and I really have no idea what I am doing, but here it goes.

*Look its me with straight hair*--->

With the help of wikipedia, I learned that blogging has been around for a long time. I found out that in the early 90s people were already blogging. How exciting is that. I had no idea that they were around then, and it turns out the idea for blogs was though of even before the 90's. Also, I always thought that blogs were just a diary like thing for people to write down their thoughts and share with others. It turns out it can be so much more then that. There are blogs about food, pets, politics, and even people at Bethel that are in the same class (I know shocking right).

Something that is a little creepy about blogging are the amount of stalkers you can get from it. When reading through wikipedia I saw there was a "Consequences" section. People are literally attacked or stalked because of the information that they put in their blogs. There are some weird people in this world.

Click here to find out where I got my information.

Go Here to listen to some amazing music by Mainstay and get ready for their CD release show 9.25.07.

blogs.

Wikipedia knows everything about blogs-- "A blog is a website where entries are written in chronological order and commonly displayed in reverse chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog."

Good to know.

Here is my new favorite blog. It was made by someone who stole my identity/has the same name as me. Cool. Mostly because who else with the same name as me actually spells it the same as I do? No one. Ok, I lied, Technorati told me 740.

Anyway, in honor of this dreary day, I thought I would share this video with you all. It makes me laugh every time.

Hoping for sunny days,
Allyson

An Intro to the Blogging World

Although I have never personally blogged myself, I have viewed numerous blog sites throughout the past few years. There are blogs available on pretty much any topic you could think of and probably more. Some of the most commonly used sites are those on politics, religion, health, music, sports among others. Nearly everyone familiar with the modern society has probably at least heard for blogs by now, but up until the last eight years or so they had nowhere near the popularity they have now. Blogs had a fairly slow start, but the use of them began to grow at a fairly rapid pace around 1999 (Wikipedia).

It is fascinating how it is so easy now to just click on a site and see thoughts from people all over the world. Some talk about very serious issues and can use blogs as a tool to learn. Others may use blogs to talk about themselves. With no surprise, however, there are many blogs having to do with humor. They may display funny jokes, stories, random facts or just about anything.

Here is a website link to a blog that had a number of funny and interesting video clips. http://www.c00lstuff.com/

Why Blog?

Blogs. If you want to share your life with others you can blog, if you want to discuss politics, you can blog, if you want to want to talk about your interests there is a blog out there with people blogging about that same interest. Blogging began in 1983 and there are approximately 100 million bloggers today. However the novelty of blogging is beginning to wear off, as there are an estimated 200 million x-bloggers.
I think the best use for blogs is for keeping people connected who are separated by distance. You can share your photos, ideas, and stories. It is the pen pals dream.
Using blogs for factual information becomes a problem as there are no limitations as to what people can post.

This is just one example of of a blog provider that I like and use to keep connected with my friends who are far away. Here is one of my favorite blogs to look at from a friend that moved away two years ago. http://www.xanga.com/ImageCatchers

"This notion of self-publishing, which is what Blogger and blogging are really about, is the next big wave of human communication. The last big wave was Web activity. Before that one it was e-mail. Instant messaging was an extension of e-mail."-Eric Schmidt

Do you speak blog?

Do you know how to speak blog? There is a whole new language related to blogging.



It seems as though that like AIM and cell phone texting, bloggers have a way of speaking, complete with a dictionary for newcomers on wikipedia. Let's explore some unusual terms that I came across...
Biblioblogosphere - a humorous reference to the world of librarian blogging. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_blogging_terms)
celeblog - similar to a tabloid, written about celebrities
momosphere - refers to blogs written by and for mothers
Next, there are different types of blogs, including photo blogs, video blogs, political blogs, law blogs, catblogs, (see above photo, which includes the original catblogger, kevin drum, and his feline friend) and audio blogs.
Popular websites for blogging include xanga and myspace.
The 'blaudience' can include close friends, such as in a diary type of blog; to other bloggers that include conversation only taking place online.
The 'blogger' is the author of a blog, sometimes inviting others to respond to a post. A post is the content the author has published on his/her blog.
Let's go back to something that caught my eye...

Catblogging. further investigation shows that this type of blog was started one friday night last year by kevin drum. He wanted to bring people together (mostly from the political arena) who disagreed on most everything, and show the simpler side of life. This concept has taken off, and since has included more than just pictures of pet cats. NASA has come on board, posting pictures of the Cat's Eye nebula

Favorite Blog

My favorite blog that I often check a few times a week is located here. This blog keeps me updated with what is happening all around the world. The blog is run by the national radio host Dennis Prager. He is a conservative talk show host that talks about everything in life, including a happiness hour and an ultimate issue about God once a week. He is on the air from 11-2 on am1280. I highly recommend checking out his radio show. Below is a video of him on Fox News.

Blog Examples...

 

http://bethelbloggers2.blogspot.com 

http://thenextgenerationamerica.blogspot.com

Search Engines for Blogging

Here is couple of search engines to help you find blogs that you might be interested in.

Technorati

PubSub

Welcome to Blogger!

Hi Everyone.

This Blog is being set up as a team blog. Together, we are going to inductively explore what blogs are/what blogs can do.

Let's get started, okay?

David