Blogs, or "web logs" can allow writers to publish on the topic of their choice in a multi-media environment for free or for very little investment. Some people even make tens of dollars blogging! Actually, some people blog for a living, though likely not a huge percentage. Blogs can allow readers to study a particular subject by reading short posts on a regular basis. If you have an interest in something- a hobby, profession, or even an obsession, more than likely there's someone out there blogging about it.
The "comments" function of a blog can allow a dialogue between the blog author(s) and the readers. According to Wikipedia:
As of December 2007, blog search engine Technorati was tracking more than 112 million blogs.[1]
So, there are lots of folks out there reading lots of blogs. How do they keep up? One way is to use a "reader" such as "My Yahoo" or "Google Reader."
This video explains what such readers can do very nicely.
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. Yes, Really. Here is a screenshot of my "My Yahoo" page for SLP blogs. This is the reader I use. There are tons of readers out there that you can find if you google "RSS Readers."
Click on the picture to see detail.
If you notice the tabs at the top of the page, you'll notice that I have 8 different pages of RSS feeds including a page for news blogs, health blogs, and SLP blogs. The "SLP Blogs" page is selected in the screenshot and you can see the names of the blogs listed along with the titles of the most recent posts. Each of the posts as well as the blog's name can be clicked on to take you directly to either the specific post or the main page of the blog. This way you can see if anything catches your eye that you might want to read more about or if you have already read the posts on the feed, you can skip going to that blog. Further, if you mouse over any post title, you can see the first few sentences of the post.
Here is a screenshot of "Google Reader" with SLP Blogs listed. Though I don't normally use "Google Reader" it seems to function more like an email inbox, except that you can view the feeds in either "list view" or "expanded view."
Click on the picture to see detail.
Happy Blog Reading!
UPDATE: I forgot to mention that my RSS (Syndication) feed link is at the bottom of the page. You can right click on "Posts (Atom)" to get the link to my feed. You can then paste that link in the reader of your choice. For example, to do that in "My Yahoo" you would click on "Personalize this Page" then click on "Add RSS Feed" under "Content" and click on "add" to finish. That will add the feed to this blog to your "My Yahoo" page. After adding RSS feeds from other sources, you can then read "Headlines" from all of your favorite sites without having to go to all of those sites specifically.
