Blogs: as Digital Design and Documentation

What is a Blog? “A blog (a portmanteau of the term web log) is a discussion or information site published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete entries ("posts") typically displayed in reverse chronological order so the most recent post appears first.” From Wikipedia

Common Features Relatively short “posts” written by the author(s) A “comments” section under each post A searchable archive of past posts A “Blogroll” of links to other related blogs Embedded images, video, and other multimedia Third party “widgets” that add other content to the blog

A Million Uses Politics Food Popular Culture Online Journal/Diary Religion Corporate Branding Music Family Celebrities Movies Academics Humor Poetry Really Anything

Quality A blog is as good as it’s author and it’s content. A blog being a blog in and of itself does not make it useless or frivolous. A blog kept by a well-known professor who is active in his or her field can make a perfectly reliable academic source. In other words, a blog is just a genre and platform. It is not inherently good, bad, useful, or fluff.

As Digital Design Traced back to 1997, blogs emerged along with web publishing tools and CMS (content management systems) that allowed non-technical people to produce web content for the first time.

As Digital Design Blogs are almost never designed from scratch. They are built by making selections from templates.

As Digital Design Through the use of hyperlinks to other webpages and links to other blogs, they are not singular documents; rather, they exist within a community of documentation.

As Digital Design This community, along with the comments sections, makes blogs an interactive experience.

As Digital Design Blogs publish instantly without needing approval or consensus from marketers or corporate sponsors. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott’s comments about Strom Thurmond at his 100 th birthday party in Soldier's blogs during second Iraq War.

As Digital Design Though posts run in reverse chronological order, blogs have no traditional beginning or end. They can be entered, explored, and left in non-linear order.

As Digital Design It’s considered bad form to change a blog post without acknowledging the change to your readers. This “rule” emerged bottom up instead of top down. Highlights never finished nature of digital documents and need for transparency in digital author/reader relationship

Why are we blogging? Low-risk, informal place to work out ideas through writing Responding to your group members weekly helps collaboration of ideas Jump start on writing content for your final project