Weblogs - a useful communication tool
Issue: Volume 27 Number 2
What is a blog?
Setting up a ‘blog’ — short for ‘weblog’ — is one of the easiest ways to communicate on the web. Blogs have been around on the web for a long time, but have experienced an explosion in popularity in the last couple of years to become the latest phenomenon in web publishing.
A blog is basically a web page made up of chronologically arranged, frequently updated postings. The attractiveness of blogs as a communication tool comes from their ease of use. The ‘blogger’ can initiate their own web site quickly and easily at one of the many free online providers and needs no prior technical knowledge. Once they have set up a template for their pages, users can post instant messages to the web.
The purpose and content of the multitude of blogs currently on the web varies greatly. They can be diaries and journals, photo albums, essays, project updates or community bulletin boards. Many also contain links to other sites and the latest news.
The range of topics is also enormous including personal, family or corporate information on art, sport, education, politics, religion — you name it, it exists.
Blogs are also about interactive communication. They allow audiences to contribute by making comments on content. Blogs can have multiple authors so they can be used by small groups to communicate in a way that is simpler and easier to follow than email or discussion forums. A blog can allow members of a team to post related links, files, quotes or commentary. A blog can help keep everyone in the loop and promote cohesiveness and group culture.
How do blogs apply to sport and coaches?
There are many blogs out there that have sport content and are used for different purposes. There are lots of sport-specific blogs that have been set up by practitioners, coaches and armchair experts that provide a wealth of information, commentary and links. Checking out blogs for your specific sport can uncover a network of links to information sites that you never knew existed. You can also make contact with others interested in the sport all round the world through taking advantage of the interactivity of these sites and contributing your own comments and sharing information. As is to be expected, most of these sites originate in the United States, however Australians are also taking to this method of communicating. Some examplesof sport-specific blogs are:
- Pat Carroll, online running coach — www.patcarroll.com.au/. This Australian site offers links and articles about running as well as advertising and supporting the online coaching services of the author.
- Open Road, a blog about bicycling which can be found at http://bikebloggers.billhobbs.com/. This is a blog started in 2004 that contains links to articles and news about high performance cyclists, links to event and news sites, and great road rides. Authors who share an interest in cycling are encouraged to contribute.
- Your Guide to Swimming — this blog-style web site appears at http://swimming.about.com/ and offers a wide range of information for swimmers from recreational to competitive. It contains information and articles about stroke techniques, nutrition, injury and recovery, and water safety.
Blogs can also be a useful source of information on specific topics that may affect you as a coach. Blogs such as Sports Nutrition at http://nutrition.about.com/b/a/063848.htm or Sports Law at http://sports-law.blogspot.com/ offer links and articles on the latest research and issues in these areas in the United States.
Do not just read others’ blogs — make your own
Blogs are a really simple way of building a web presence for yourself or your organisation. At a minimum, blogs can provide you with a quick and easy communication tool for information about you, your club or organisation to a specific audience and the broader public. For a simple Australian example, the Australian women’s lightweight rowing team uses a blog-style web page to update interested parties with news on the team www.ngsolutions.com.au/auslightychicks/news.asp.
More sophisticated users will use them to advertise and run their businesses (for example, http://sbs-erinalders.blogeasy.com/ — Sports Business Simulations) , collaborate with others, keep a calendar of upcoming events and aggregate news from other blogs or web sites to their own site (for example, www.sportsblogs.org).
The beauty of blogs is their simplicity. Anyone can become an online publisher with very little technical know-how.
You will need to choose a blog package. You can either have a weblog service host your site, publish files to your personal web space or set up your own weblog software on a server (computer) run by you or your ISP.
If you are new to web publishing, the easiest method is the first one. Choose one of the many weblog services online to host your site. Some examples of these are www.blogger.com, www.tblog.com and www.livejournal.com. They each have a number of different templates you can choose for your site. They offer basic functions free of content uploading, allowing multiple authors, public comments and adding links.
If you find these useful, you may like to purchase upgrades, which range from US$1.99–14.99 per month and allow you to add images, customise your site, and post to your site by email or even mobile phone when you are on the road (called moblogging).
If you are beginning with a bit of knowledge already and would like some extra functionality for your site, you could try a software package such as Radio http://radio.userland.com/, which you host on your own computer for US$39.99 per year. It offers a built-in news aggregator that periodically trawls your favourite web sites for updates. The Radio software then allows you to read something collected by the news aggregator and — in a couple of clicks — add the content or a link to your own site.
Most blog packages will provide the possibility of syndicating information on your site to other sites. News aggregators can pick up information on your site through a technology called RSS (Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary — depending on who you ask). This can point traffic to your site if you are after a wide public audience or want to make contact with like-minded individuals looking for your information.
There are several different blog packages available so if you require extra functionality, do some research (a Google search will bring up lots of different blog tools) and decide which will best suit your needs.
Once you have set up, all you need to do is add your content. If your audience is the general public, you should aim to update your site regularly. This will keep people coming back and get them involved in providing comments on your site. This will help you to develop a network with others, find links to other sites and articles of interest to your readers and add more content to your own site. You may like to invite others to join you as an author on your site to help you keep it up to date.
Blogs can be both a source of information for coaches and a networking tool as well as an easy way of developing your own online presence. By starting a blog you will develop a whole new way of communicating with your athletes, club members, customers or the general public, and you can start to build networks with other coaches all over the world.
So just how easy is it?
Here is how you start your own weblog at www.blogger.com, although most basic blog sites have a similarly simple set procedure:
- Go to www.blogger.com.
- Under ‘Create a your Own Blog!’ click the ‘Start Now’ button.
- Fill in your name, email address, chosen username and password, and accept the terms and conditions.
- Choose a title and description for your blog that will appear on your blog page.
- Choose whether you want to host it on BlogSpot or on your own server.
- Choose an address for your blog, which will be in the form http://[yourname].blogspot.com.
- Choose one of the seven templates available.
- Your new blog will now be created and you can post your first messages.
