Learn to Read Blogs in Just a Few Minutes
A lot of people don’t quite get blogs and this whole “Web 2.0” thing. At Ergotron, we’re trying to start getting into the spirit of Web 2.0 and joining the conversations that are going on out there. It’s been rather slow going, though, trying to help people get to the point where they “get it”. Web 2.0 is such a nebulous concept that it takes quite a while to wrap your head around it and see all the potential that is out there – even for those of us with a technical background.
I think the best way to start learning about Web 2.0, is to just get into it and start reading blogs. Manually reading a bunch of blogs can get extremely tedious though, so you really need to use an aggregator. Finding and using an aggregator can be a pretty big hurdle for some people, so I searched around the net and found a nice, short, 3-minute tutorial on how to use the built in tools in Internet Explorer 7. Even though its not the best aggregator out there, its definitely the easiest to get, since pretty much everyone has IE7 by now anyway.
Here’s the tutorial:
http://timeatlas.com/tutorials/ie7rss.htm
Once you’ve learned how to subscribe to a blog, you’ll need to find some blogs that interest you. An easy way to find blogs is to just search Google. For example, to find blogs related to quilting, just search for “quilting blog”.
You can also try browsing through Technorati Blog Finder:
Or the EatonWeb Blog Directory:
You’re sure to find some blogs that interest you. Once you’ve found some, keep checking your feed list in Internet Explorer. If you see a post that you have an opinion on, post a comment… get into the conversation. This is the heart of blogging and its power… it’s two-way… it’s interactive… you don’t just read, you participate.
Speaking of participation, click the “Comment” link below and join the conversation right here.
