Posts tagged ‘blog’

January 24th, 2010

What is RSS (Really Simple Syndication) and why do I care?

by MaryFrances

According to Wikipedia:


RSS is is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works-such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video-in a standardized format. An RSS document (which is called a “feed”, “web feed”, or “channel”) includes full or summarized text, plus metadata such as publishing dates and authorship. Web feeds benefit publishers by letting them syndicate content automatically. They benefit readers who want to subscribe to timely updates from favored websites or to aggregate feeds from many sites into one place.

As one of our clients put it, “you lost me at ‘web feed formats’ can you start over?”.
If you have a blog, this is all fairly important and if you use our services here at Widget, you’ll end up calling us to ask “where is my RSS feed” at some point, so pay attention!

Think newspapers. Syndication is quite simply broadcasting (an article or cartoon) for publication in many magazines or newspapers at the same time. Ironically, now this term is more often used regarding the content of websites than it is for newspapers.

Really simple syndication comes set up and ready to go on most blogs. On Blogger, for instance if you type in http://blogname.blogspot.com/atom.xml the “feed” will usually automatically come up. That is, if you haven’t changed settings, but we’re assuming here you’re a beginner and you don’t go regularly mucking around in your publishing settings in the back end.

September 29th, 2008

Social Networking for Old People and bear with me

by MaryFrances

A friend of mine posted a link to this Salon article on Facebook and I think it’s a good lesson for any of us who are “old” (keep in mind on Facebook that’s OVER 22). It’s a really good article and a good lesson for people who are beginning to dabble in Facebook.

On that subject, I’m starting a series of classes. I offered our first one on Facebook and LinkedIn as a test and I think the next one coming will be a 3 or 4 part blogging course.

Stay tuned!

October 30th, 2007

6 Points to a Successful Blog

by MaryFrances

This is an article from one of our past newsletters:

  1. Choose a topic that you know, like, and are passionate about. This way you will never get bored and will keep your audience always interested and asking for more.
  2. Open a Blogger account. It is free and easy to use. You can also use the free WordPress accounts or if you’re more internet savvy install WordPress and host it yourself. Blogger is owned by Google though and because of this, in my experience, you run higher onsearch engines.
  3. Almost always post a picture with a blog entry! It adds interest and color. You can easily load photos free with Webshots or Flickr . They can be items, arty, family (crop and be artsy if you want) or whatever relates to your topic.
  4. In your blog’s sidebar, create links related to your topic. It looks bare without them and it creates more usable content for your readers.
  5. Post, post, post! Two or three times a week is ideal. Once a week is the borderline minimum that I recommend to keep your audience engaged and maintain adequate visibility in the search engines. You can “pre-write” posts and post them as you go along. Most blog sites allow you to write drafts – post when you’re ready!
  6. Make comments on other people’s blogs. They will most certainly come to your blog to say hi or see who you are. Community is what’s most important in blogging and there are a LOT of blogs out there. Set yours apart from the rest!