By Marian Wertalka
Essential Blogging: Selecting and Using Weblog Tools
By Cory Doctorow, Rael Dornfest, J. Scott Johnson, Shelley Powers, Benjamin Trott, and Mena G. Trott
July 2002
ISBN: 0-596-00388-9
260 pages, $29.95
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/essblogging/index.html
Blogging? What’s that? When a friend asked me if I knew how to set up a blog for her new company, I had to admit I didn’t know what she was talking about. “Essential Blogging: Selecting and Using Weblog Tools” has shown me the way. The book covers several different systems varying in sophistication, and provides detailed instructions on how to set up, and later customize a new blog.
The first chapter gives a thorough overview of blogs and their features. A blog – or weblog – is a web page made of reverse chronological posts, like an online journal. It can be about anything you want – comments or articles you’ve written, links to cool things you’ve found, or your own photos, sound clips, even video clips (“vlogging”). A reader can syndicate or subscribe to a blog, and have the posts come to her via a special program – no more searching through bookmarks! A blog can have multiple authors, and a company site like authors, and a company site like O’Reilly’s has dozens of blogs (http://weblogs.oreilly.com/).
 The six authors (Cory Doctorow, Rael Dornfest, J. Scott Johnson, Shelley Powers, Benjamin Trott, and Mena G. Trott), who are all veteran bloggers themselves, show how to get started by dissecting their own demo blogs. They take the reader step by step through several different systems available – Blogger, Radio Userland, Moveable Type and Blosxom – ranging from easiest to most sophisticated. There are other systems out there, but these seem to be the most representative. After reading up on the basics, I was informed and curious enough to go online and take a look for myself.
The authors’ collective hands-on experience shows. Three chapters (one per each system) are fairly comprehensive tutorials on the basics of getting an account set up, publishing your first post, and troubleshooting. The authors’ instructions take you step by step through everything you need to do. They point out quirks, limitations and pitfalls; and they offer tips and tricks that may not be readily apparent if you were just following online directions. Four additional chapters are for more advanced users, and offer snippets of code to tweak or customize features. Here’s where it helps being comfortable with going under the hood of a web site. Keeping a blog is as easy or complex as you want it to be.
The best chapter is the last one – a chorus of voices from many bloggers, young and old, seasoned and newbie – as if a mini-blog had been added to the book. It’s interesting to read why people post their thoughts and content online, and links are given so you can check it out for yourself. The heart of blogging is sharing and discussing information, and creating community while doing so.
After reading this very useful book, I’m much more informed about what choices are available, and what to suggest to my friend for her new business blog. Since she’s “not very technical,” getting started with an easier system may be the way to go. I know I’ll refer back to “Essential Blogging” as we set things up. I give this book 5 out of 5 for thorough, detailed, useful information.
May 2004
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