Blogs, Wikis and RSS -

the What, Why and How....

In short (very short) Weblogs, or

"blogs,"

as they are called, can best be defined as free Web sites that are easily created and updated by those with even a minimum of technology know-how.

For a more complete history and societal impact essay click here or here or a very interesting one here Powerful New Web Tools for Educators

Wiki

is "a website that allows users to add content, as on an Internet forum, but also allows anyone to edit the content. "Wiki" refers to the collaborative software used to create such a website (see Wiki software)." (this definition is from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki )

the following is from www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WhatIsaWiki

Question: What does 'wiki' stand for?

Answer: It comes from the Hawaiian word wiki wiki, which means quick.

Question: How do you pronounce 'wiki'?

Answer: My take on this is the Whi in Whip with the key - "whi-key" - others? In the Hawaiian language, it is pronounced "wee-kee".

For those of us old-time Internet users familiar with BBS (bulletin boards) or Usenet News Groups or even Yahoo eGroups (emailed digests that can be read online or emailed daily with the total of all the emails on the topic yesterday) a wiki can be described as a website where people are invited to add their thoughts to it.

My favorite Example is from Leo Laporte leoville.tv

RSS

" is a format for syndicating news and the content of news-like sites, including major news sites like Wired, news-oriented community sites like Slashdot, and personal weblogs. But it's not just for news. Pretty much anything that can be broken down into discrete items can be syndicated via RSS: the "recent changes" page of a wiki, a changelog of CVS checkins, even the revision history of a book. Once information about each item is in RSS format, an RSS-aware program can check the feed for changes and react to the changes in an appropriate way"

RSS-aware programs called news aggregators are popular in the weblogging community. Many weblogs make content available in RSS. A news aggregator can help you keep up with all your favorite weblogs by checking their RSS feeds and displaying new items from each of them (from What Is RSS? dive-into-xml

or Harvard's explanation at Rss

My favorite example of RSS is right above if you are using a Firefox Browser - If you are not, here is what mine looks like.

If you see an orange square with BBC NEWS or CURRENT HEADLINES just below the address box, click on it and see what happens.

A pull down menu will appear with the top 31 headlines of the news from BBC news. Just left click on any one of these headlines and you will go to news.bbc.co.uk and the page for that story.

RIGHT MOUSE CLICKING will allow you to choose open in a new tab or window if you like.

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Now what?

A really good question of any new technology is... "Now that I know what it is, why do I care?"

Yes, that could be said of all of this as well. My short answer is community communication.
Do you want to join a community discussing Genealogy? (Or just listen in??) Then click on the word geneaolgy in the last sentence to go to genealogyblog.com/index.php
or even this one genealogy.about.com (but this has LOTS of ads on it)

If you are reading this website, you could very well be interested in websites about computers and computer tips . You might enjoy plain old published websites with tips, or discussions about the latest tips and tricks. You might even have your own questions and would like answers.

How do you find them?
I found all of the above blogs by googling "geneaology blog" and "computer tips blog" respectively.

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How do you create your own blog or website?

you might want to read something like this first for advice and links to get started (written by Michael Hyatt, President and CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers)

or just