BlogWelcome (blog = a noun + a verb)

Okay, this is a trendier title than "introduction". In this first step of the "blogShop" we welcome the un-initiated into the virtues of weblogs, and try to entice you to click a bit farther.

Perhaps you have heard colleagues talking about "blogs." Maybe your middle school age child spends a lot of time "blogging." Or you may have read about them as a new internet fad/phenomena.

If you are still foggy about blogs ("blog fog?"), do not worry. And if you are really lost, just let's say you are looking at a blog right now? Is that clearer than mud?

Blog The Noun

Yes, this is a blog, short for "weblog." Just a web page. That's all. No fuss. We will get to the definitions later.

It is nothing more than another among the 99 trillion other web pages. But beneath this blog is something unique, as well as the simple tools I have used to write here, plus some really nifty ways that blogs can communicate with each other and people who might be interested in it.

So think of a blog as a web site that can be easily published.

Without knowing HTML.

Without being a techie geek.

Blog the Verb

But you might also say, "I blogged on that issue today" which likely means that you have just written about a particular topic or issue on your own weblog. Or you can blog about content on another web site, meaning you have written some commentary about information you have found elsewhere on the internet.

So the act of writing to your blog is called "blogging." You "blog" to your "blog."

A noun and a verb. In the next section we dig a little bit deeper into what a weblog is.