Meghan Mehaffey

Blogging

When given the option to choose between creating a blog, wiki, or website I thought that a blog
would be fun to try. At first I didn't really know what a blog was, but knew that it was kind of
like an online diary. Until recently reviewing blogs for our previous assignment I realized that a
blog was a spot where you could put anything you wanted, not just words. I came across videos,
pictures, and links. It was then that I realized that a blog could be so much more than just
expression through words. Being the creative type I really liked the idea of creating a blog to
express my taste in music, videos, art, school, traveling, and anything I could come up with.
Being able to look at other sites where people have blogged has helped a lot too with the layout
ideas and what I would like to include. I saw that there were some blogs out there that are geared
towards specific causes, but I feel that I would like to make mine more about things that are
important to me and my ever-changing world. When I started out making my blog I was
confronted with the question of what to call it, I decided on just my name for now because I
couldn't come up with anything on the spot. I found the whole blog creating process to be
relatively easy and I liked that the website guided you through it. My layout right now is quite
simple, but gaining more blogging experience I hope to update it in the near future. I wanted to
look for other blog spaces that would help me to make the most of my blog site.

Bookmarking

I bookmarked eight sites and most of them were sites with blogs but some were used to be
helpful blogging tips. The first site that I bookmarked was important blogging tips for college
students ( A g r a w a l , 2 0 1 0 ) , I found this site useful because it explains how to keep a balance
between college life and the blogging world. It also includes everything from organizing your
time spent blogging and getting your blog out there by telling others. Another bookmarked site
that I found that was relevant to this first one was ten tips on how to write a successful blog
( H o u s l e y ) . This includes things such as using an RSS feed to get your blog noticed, using
keyword rich words in the headline to attract readers, keeping up to date with current news, and
staying on topic with your article. I thought these two websites were helpful to give me ideas on
how to get my blog out there and how to manage my time between school and time spent on the
internet. In making my blog more appealing I also bookmarked a templates site that I can use in
the future to change my background to something that I find portrays me better. In setting my
blog up to get ideas for other successful blogs I decided to look to one of the celebrities that I
follow on twitter. I reviewed Whitney Port’s blogging space to get ideas for things that I should
write about or ideas of how she set up her site. One thing I really like is that when she is
explaining or blogging about something in specific she uses a lot of photos of herself, it’s nice to
see that she actually runs her site and to know that she posts it all for her followers. She also
includes links and uses questions to generate comments from her followers, I like that idea and
think I would like to incorporate it into my blog. I also wanted to use a music artists’ site for
reference since I am a music enthusiast. The site that I bookmarked is Dave Matthews Band
blogging site, this site is created by fans for fans. I like that they also include a comment section
along with links and the ability to share the stories to facebook and twitter. This site also includes
proposed tour dates and up to date news about the band. Other sites I’m interested in taking ideas
from are the Psyblog website that shows blogs about current psychology research that is related
to everyday life. This is especially important to me because I am getting into my last couple
semesters as a psych major where I will need to be keeping up to date on research and gaining
ideas for future research that I might be interested in. A site that I bookmarked was top ten
feminist blogs ( R o z z i , 2 0 0 9 ) where I am able to gain links to other feminist blog sites, I like that
it gives information about the sites as well so you can pick and choose which ones are part of
your interests. I noticed that it includes some of the sites that we researched for our blog analysis
project in the previous class. The last blog site I chose to bookmark was Ms Magazine. I chose
this site because it is a feminist site that offers more than one outlook and view into different
types of feminism. I also like that it sections off the topics of the blogs so if you are interested in
a specific topic you can easily find it. All in all I felt that most of the pages I bookmarked will be
helpful in my blogging experience to get my simple blog to be more appealing.

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Inspiration for my Blogspot

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Citations

Agrawal, Harsh. (2010, February 28). 9 important blogging tips for college students.
Retrieved from http://www.shoutmeloud.com/9-important-blogging-tips-for-college-
students.html

Housley, Sharon. (n.d.). How to write a successful blog: top ten tips . Retrieved from
http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2005/04/26/how_to_write_a_successful.htm

Rozzi, Giulia. (2009). Top ten feminist blogs. Retrieved from

http://www.takepart.com/news/2008/03/13/top-ten-feminist-blogs/