Life Beyond Code's Blogging Starter Checklist

From Life Beyond Code (great name for a blog, btw), an excellent Blogging Starter Checklist:

1. Register a domain name with your name and redirect to your blog.
2. Get a "Creative Commons License"
3. Get a feedburner account and direct feeds through feedburner
4. Implement subscription chiclets
5. Enable search
6. Claim your blog at Technorati
7. Allow users to get your blog via email
8. Link to your profile
9. Link to your photo album
10. Announce your blog to the world
11. Provide a way to contact you
12. Link to your bookmarks
13. Create meaningful categories and chunk content
14. Put your photo on the home page
15. Ensure that your RSS feeds are OK
16. Geo-tag your blog at Feedmap
17. Include a blog link in your email signature
18. Claim your blog at Feedster
19. Register at Findory
20. Register at blogwise

Check out the original article for details and links!

Eclectic Book Club Blog

Congratulations on your "A" in the blogging course, Stephenie! I'm proud to present The Eclectic Book Club Blog, a new and very active blog for a reader's group in North Alabama. GREAT JOB!

~ Marianne

Learning to Blog

A fantastic look at what libraries are doing with blogs as learning examples, The Free Range Librarian, K.G. Schneider, has posted her recent conference presentation "virtual handout" on blogging and RSS tools. Check out Blogs: Not Just Another Ugly Neologism

Also, Michael Stevens at Tame the Web has shared his Dominican University's LIS class assignment which includes creating a blog and then making 5 blog posts about libraries, technology and the Web. Wow.

CC: Library Supporter

Intellectual Property and Copyright Issues for Blogs

What about quoting someone else's blog? Can you use a picture you find on the Internet? What is all this "CC" stuff I need to protect my writings or art?

There is a ton of information on the Internet about copyright law, most notably from Stanford Law School's Lawrence Lessig, who currently chairs the Creative Commons project. A Creative Commons license on your blog "helps you publish your work online while letting others know exactly what they can and can't do with your work."*

Mr. Lessig is also involved with the Electronic Frontier Foundation which has published The Bloggers' FAQ on Intellectual Property. I highly recommend this article which addresses issues that arise when you publish material created by others on your blog.

Yahoo! News Includes Blogs

Certainly a big step towards blogs blending with the mainstream media...

Today we've begun the integration of blogs in Yahoo! News Search. Now when you search on Yahoo! News you will see blog results as well as content from thousands of trusted news sites. The experiences and opinions published on blogs make a great addition to the mainstream news people read everyday. And major world events are further fueling the growth of blogs as platforms for anyone who wants to have a public voice. At times, even everyday bloggers beat the mainstream media to a story. More...

Via Jeremy Zawodny's blog

Top Ten Tips On Writing Your Blog

Here are some great ideas for creating blog content:

1) Check your Inbox.
2) Start Blog Hopping.
3) Comment in Your Own Blog.
4) Read, Listen To, or Watch the News.
5) Give Memes or Collaborations a Go.
6) Create Lists (like this one!)
7) Play Games, Answer Surveys, or Take Quizzes.
8) Blog at Random.
9) Be a Sleuth!
10) Do Something New.

See the complete article at About.com.

Congratulations, you're ready to be a blogger!

I will continue post items of interest here, (it is a blog after all, and shouldn't lay dormant) but that's it for the course portion of the blog.

If you run into trouble there's alot of material out on the internet about using this software and the official help files are great. Remember you can always email me from the link on the bottom or comment here if anything comes up.

Happy Blogging!