Blogging
What is a blog?
Blogs are virtual journals created by individuals or groups. Blogs generally follow a theme and consist of text and images which appear with the most recent entry on top.
While there are dedicated blogging services, such as Google’s Blogger, many social networking services offer a blogging facility as part of their service. Many online news services now also generate blogs and encourage readers to follow them.
A blog can follow a theme, for example ‘Tips on parenting a 13 year old boy’ or ‘My cat blog’, or provide a viewpoint on current news events.
Microblogging is a type of blog that allows users to publish short text updates. This can be done using instant messaging, email or microblogging services such as Twitter. Some social networking sites also offer microblogging as an option on their sites.
Twitter is currently the most popular microblogging service. It is a website which enables user to subscribe to microblogs posted by others as well as posting their own. These pieces of information, known as tweets, are no longer than 140 characters long. When writing a tweet, users choose whether to share it with the whole world, or just a list of friends who ’follow’ them.
Using Twitter on the internet is free, but if users choose to have tweets forwarded to their mobile phone via SMS, there may be charges.
Blogging and microblogging safely
As with all social networking services it is critical that users check privacy policies when signing up for a blog or microblog service. Users should restrict the amount of personal information they disclose. For children it is also wise to check the age guidelines.