Create and maintain a basic weblog/Searching for blogs/Finding blogs that interest you

Basic:

Why would I need to access a blog?

How do I search for blogs that might interest me?

How would I access a number that interest me?

How do I determine and assess the authenticity of information contained in blogs?

Objective
To find and visit, peruse and assess 6 blogs that interest you

Activity
1. Think of words that describe your interests. You will use these words to search for blogs.

2. Visit the following blog search services and use your words as search queries:
 * http://technorati.com
 * http://bloglines.com
 * http://blogsearch.google.com

3. Write down the URLs or bookmark at least 6 blogs you think are close to what you are interested in.

4. Now, spend some time studying each of the 6 blogs you have recorded. Do some of the following:
 * Check the dates of the latest articles posted to the blog to see if it is still active. If the blog appears to no longer active, check to see if it has at least a few months of archived articles. You checking to see if the blog is authentic, and not simply a blog set up for automatic advertising - like a spam blog for example.
 * If the blog has a search box available, use your key words to search for articles of interest. If you find articles, skim read them for their content, date of publishing, and level of information you value. Remember - you might not be looking for articles you agree with, you are looking for articles or content that interests you.
 * When you skim the articles and content of a blog, take the effort to open links - especially if they are to other blogs. It is common for bloggers to link to other bloggers, and at least 2/3rds of the time spent blogging is in fact spent reading other blogs, so a good blog should direct you to other blogs of interest. To keep it managable, if you save or bookmark a new blog, try to delete one that you have saved previously - one that is not as good. if they are all good, well... you'll just have to keep them all :)

5. Once you have settled on your list of blogs, you might like to subscribe to the active ones so that when they post new content, you will know about it. To do this you need to set up an RSS News Reader, which is covered in the tutorial Introduction to subscribing to blogs.

Resources

 * http://technorati.com
 * http://bloglines.com
 * http://blogsearch.google.com
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spam_blog
 * http://wikieducator.org/Create_and_maintain_a_basic_weblog/Introduction_to_subscribing_to_blogs