A good one to have on your shelf.
For the beginner to intermediate level blogger, there's a wealth of good stuff here. It provides a lot of good information on the subject of blogging in an easy to read style and format. I liked the author's writing/teaching style, the explanations, the graphics, all the helpful blog-related links, etc, etc. This book is a great resource which you'll probably find yourself referring to over and over again.
Obsolete.
With so many improvements in Blogger and Six Apart's Typepad, this book is by now obsolete. If you want tutorials go online and you'll find thousands that will help you start your blogging adventure.
Solid for beginners.
I'll note that I bought this book due to a email-conversation with Matt Haughey, one of the book's authors, about a small bit that the book covered.I think the book did an excellent job of covering the basics of a Weblog, but that it was far too Blogger-centric. [This is a somewhat forgivable offense, as pb, Meg, and Matt were all Pyra employees at the time.]
A second edition of the book would be interesting; like most any technically-oriented book, it hasn't aged very well in terms of specific applications of Weblog technology.
Loved it!
First, the bad things: The book was written by the developers of blogger.com (Pyra Software) and they advertize their creation throughout the book. I find it annoying.
Now for the goodies: It's a readable book. I read every word without losing interest in it. That's something I could rarely say about a book that describes any technology. It tells the story of blogging, from the earliest days until the day it was published. There are tons of useful links in it and even a database design scheme, to show us how simple a blogging tool basically is. From a business point of view, there isn't much to read about, except for the fact that using weblogs in a business environment is something only few have done so far to tell about it. The book saved me a lot of googling, blog reading and note taking. It holds a massive amount of important links to useful web resources for bloggers and/or researchers. The book has a companion website in http://www.blogroots.com
A rounded and well-balanced book
At heart this is a straightforward and workmanlike introduction to blogging (the practice of keeping a public, on-line, journal). It compares features of most of the major blogging tools, describes how to use them, and suggests practical exercises to encourage readers to get started. It even includes a pretty good glossary and simple HTML reference. All this should help make it easy to get started in blogging using this book.The authors don't stop there, though. They add coverage of all kinds of alternative uses of blog technology, from corporate marketing to blogging for team building. Then they round out the book with chapters on how to publicise and market your own blog, and how to become part of the blogging community. The book also has a chapter on how blogs work, although it seems a bit one-sided, only really covering how one blog system works.
This book is a rounded and well-balanced coverage of all aspects of blogging. It's a little too tied to specific technology, and lacks some raw enthusiasm and sparkle, but still a great book for the first-time blogger.
(10 reviews)
