Introduction to Citizen Media
Even though Venezuela is a deeply divided country, bloggers in the capital city, Caracas, share their thoughts about the changes taking place around them. http://www.to2blogs.com/
Four Steps to Blogging
Every blogger needs just four things to get started
1. A Computer
You will need a computer, but it doesn’t have to be your own. Because blogging software is all on the internet, you can write, publish, and archive all of your content online and access it from any computer at any cyber-cafe.
2. An Internet Connection
Having a fast internet connection does help if you are interested in working with audio and video, but even extremely slow connections are OK for text blogging.
3. Blogging Software
One of the first choices you must make is what kind of software you want to use to make your weblog. Rising Voices offers guides on two of the most popular services: Blogger and WordPress.
4. Opinions and Stories
Finally you will need something to write about. Some people treat their blogs like public journals - a way to record the experiences of their lives. Others like to discuss politics or share their opinions about the state of the world. What you choose to write about is up to you, but we offer a few suggestions on the next page.
As Easy as Email
The word “blog” is short for weblog and refers to a type of website that is updated chronologically. You can think of a blog just like email. Except, instead of sending an email to just one person, you are publishing the note on a website where it can be seen by anyone in the world with an internet connection.
Most blogs allow for comments, which means that other people are allowed to leave a public comment on every note that you publish. If, for example, you write that Michael Jackson was the greatest singer that ever lived, I could leave a comment disagreeing with you. This is how a conversation begins - one person writes his or her opinion and then others either agree or disagree. Some of the most popular weblogs frequently receive over 100 comments every time something is published.
The first blogs started to appear in the mid-1990’s, but blogging didn’t really get popular until around 2003. These days the websites of many newspapers, celebrities, and even presidents also contain weblogs where new information is posted on a daily or weekly basis.
Start in Just Five Minutes
Starting a blog is just as fast and easy as starting an email account. In fact, you’ll notice several similarities between writing an email message and writing a post on a blog. The two accompanying tutorials to this guide will show you how to start and maintain a blog using two of the most popular free services, WordPress.com and Blogger.com.
It doesn’t really matter which service you choose - both are free and available in many languages. And, if you change your mind, you can usually import your blog from one type of service to another.
If you are eager to begin, you can skip the rest of this introduction for now and head straight to one of the tutorials on how to set up a blog with either Wordpress.com or Blogger.com. However, there are a few things you might want to consider before you start.
Why blog?
Tens of millions of people all over the world now have weblogs. There are blogs in over 100 different languages and covering more topics than you could possibly imagine. However, the great majority of blogs are written from North America, East Asia, and Western Europe. Even though internet access has spread across much of the globe, participation in this new, exciting, online conversation has mostly been constrained to just the Northern Hemisphere. These guides hope to inspire more creative participation from individuals in the so-called developing world.
Different people keep blogs for different reasons. Some people want to record their lives for their children and grand-children and great-great-great grand children. Even though we will never meet our great-great-great grandchildren, they will be able to experience our lives just as we do thanks to what we leave behind on the Internet. Unlike photographs and paper journals which fade and decay after time, what is published to the internet can survive forever.
Others keep blogs because they are passionate about a certain topic, issue, or hobby. Many blogs focus on technology and politics while others focus on literature, art, and photography. Still other niche blogs explain how to start a business, how to invest money, or how to work more productively. Fictional blogs are also becoming increasingly popular as both established and aspiring writers are now publishing their short stories to the internet.
There are blogs about how to be a better farmer, how to be a better parent, and how to be a better guitar player. In fact, if you are interested in anything at all, there is most likely a blog about it. (On the next page we’ll look at ways to discover blogs that match your interests.)
