How To Explain Blogging To Granny

Most people who run a blog have probably had the experience of trying to explain the whole idea of blogging to somebody who simply doesn’t understand. I have been there. MANY times.

I tried to explain not too long ago about converting PC Mechanic over to the blog format. It was understood what I was doing before. I posted articles. People read them. Sometimes people bought things and advertisers paid me to reach my audience. OK, good. The minute I say that all that is now a blog, it was as if the world ended. Did my site basically cease to exist? Am I starting from scratch? And the real kicker of a question:

Does that mean PC Mechanic is not a website anymore?

That is one thing that I find often: people just don’t GET blogging. They think that it is something different than a normal website. Or if they had some basic idea of what a blog was, they probably thought I was now hocking pictures of my dog on my nice shiny new blog called “PC Mechanic”.

So, I thought I would try to outline a few of the real essentials here. Blogging is so simple it’s not even funny. And, yes, a blog IS a website. They are one and the same. So, here goes.

The word “blog” is a short form word from the words WEB LOG. The concept started as simply a way for people to keep personal diaries online. On a blog, a person will post whatever they want. Each post has a date and time at which they posted it. And the blog site will typically display those entries in chronological order. The blog of today is pretty much exactly the same thing. However, the USE of blogs has evolved drastically. Blog sites are no longer primarily personal diaries. People have started to use them to easily write and publish content to the internet on a variety of topics. Basically, whatever suits the author.

So, a blog is essentially a website just like any other, the only difference being that most blogs comply to a certain format. Namely, posts written in chronological order and displayed that way. Nothing more.

As the blog evolved and got more popular, the format evolved technically to allow better inter-communication among bloggers. Thinks like pings, trackbacks, permalinks, etc, served to allow bloggers to easily find other bloggers. When a blogger posted a link to another blogger, the recipient of the link will know about it. This facilitates more communication. This all evolved into one big network of bloggers. All of them talk about different things, but the network evolving to allow bloggers of similar interests to find each other. They can then have online conversations whereby they respond to other bloggers on their own blogs, etc.

Hence we have what is called the “blogosphere”. This is basically a slang term used to refer to the collective force of bloggers online. It would be very similar to referring to TV and radio as “the press”, or “mass media”.

If you picture the world as a constant flow of thoughts and ideas, you might better get the picture. Thoughts and ideas emanate from people. The internet allowed the world to connect, and allowed people around the world to flow their ideas. The blog, in it’s infancy, started with humble intentions of a person just wanting to share their thoughts and lives online in the hopes that somebody might read it and care. As more and more people started doing that, the medium evolved to then allow these bloggers to begin to read and comment on the things other bloggers said. And the global conversation grew from there.

When I convert PC Mechanic to a blog, it is anything BUT starting from scratch. All I was doing was taking a traditional media site and turning it into a site better equipped for conversation on a global level. Instead of a one-way flow, where I post something and others read it, I open it up to allow others in the blogophere to easily find me and chime in. I also allow people to comment on what I write, pointing out where I Am wrong or adding to what I have to say.

Which brings me to another misnomer. Does having a blog mean other people can write on my website? Not necessarily. See, the blog as a format ALLOWS an increased level of communication online. It makes people better able to find what you are doing. But, it does not mean that you have to allow it all. You can turn comments off altogether, which means nobody can comment on what you say. You can also allow comments, but they don’t show up on your site unless you approve them. So, there are controls and it doesn’t mean your site turns into a big community forum. On the contrary, you remain the leader of your own site. But, by using a blog, you are simply opening the window blinds and allowing more people to see what you’re doing. What they do when they walk in the door is up to you.

I was a bit of a late adopter of blogging, I’m embarrassed to say. When I saw the potential for it, I made the jump full force. At the beginning of this year, I had no blogs. Now I have converted my largest site to a blog and am working on getting this one up to the same point. Anybody interested in sharing their thoughts online should definitely look into running a blog. Especially if you actually want people to READ what you say.

Is getting viewership for a blog easy? No. It is not automatic at all. But, perhaps a little easier.

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