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The final defining element of a blog is, for me, its voice. Not what is said but how it’s said.

Blogs were initially purely personal vehicles for self-expression, many still are. In this case the voice is clear, the author is talking directly to us, often about his or her personal beliefs, concerns or life issues. The personality of the writer comes through strongly.

Things become more complicated with subject based or corporate blogs. What does “voice” mean in these cases?

Let’s take Blogduction itself as an example. It’s not about me and my life in any way, it’s about blogs and how to write them. Yet I like to think it still has a unique and recognisable voice. That’s because I try to write as if I was talking to you personally – which, indirectly, I am. So I use personal pronouns like “I” and informal sentence structures. The information in these pages could easily have been presented in a more formal, encyclopaedic fashion – but then it wouldn’t have been a blog.

Speaking of encyclopaedia, a good example of the distinction is Wikipedia. When this began it was pretty much an informal collaborative project. Articles would be written by people who were experts and/or enthusiasts and often had an relaxed, sometimes even jokey style. Wikipedia as a whole didn’t have a single voice but individual pages often did. The site could well have been labelled a multi-author blog. That all changed recently as Wikipedia imposed stricter rules for style and citing of sources. The result is a more reliable source of information but one that no longer even remotely resembles a blog.

With company blogs a distinctive voice can be more difficult to achieve. Writers aren’t speaking just for themselves and will often be handicapped by legal and commercial sensitivities. However a good corporate blog will still manage to convey the sense of a writer communicating directly with the reader and show personality. A poor company blog sounds like bland committee generated corporate-speak and is unlikely to attract readers.

Which brings us back to the previous point that blogs are interactive. People are more inclined to interact with a person than an encyclopaedia.

It all comes down to “be yourself”.

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In the previous article, The Blog Timeline, I mentioned the blog coments section. That brings me on to the next distinguishing feature of blogs: interactivity.

In many ways blogs could be seen as one of the first examples of what we now call Web 2.0, web democratisation and ‘the read-write web”. Ordinary users were no longer restricted to being passive content consumers, they could easily publish their own thoughts. Not only that, they could even interact with site authors!

Given the abundance of sophisticated Social Networks Sites (SNS) today it’s easy to forget what a breakthrough this was. For the first time people could easily engage with a web page and have their say. They could interact, not just with the blog author but with other commenters. They could agree, disagree, question, expand or simply let off steam.

They still do. Comments remain an integral part of what I consider to be true blogs and a good blog will actively encourage them (I do!). Even news and company blogs usually allow some form of commenting, albeit with strict moderation. The blog fills a niche that is less fixed than a simple web page and less ephemeral than something like Twitter.

Blogs aren’t speeches, they’re discussions.

Next: The Voice of a Blog

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One of the distinguishing features of most blogs is that they tend to embody the concept of time. Unlike static information sites blogs change and grow and the order of the posts is usually important.

In the early days of course the time element was explicit: after all, “blog” means “web log” which initially meant a personal diary or journal kept online. Many people still use blogs this way today.

The initial idea of a personal journal has expanded greatly with many blogs covering events, either small or large scale. Company blogs will often talk about new product development and releases, authors might discuss progress on their latest book. News, review and opinion blogs abound in all fields. Again, a key feature is that they are time sensitive and respond to events.

So what about a content based blog such as this one? Well even here the time element matters. For instance this post is part of an ordered series, other posts on Blogduction will react to news in the blogosphere.

Perhaps the key area where the timeline is visible in a blog is in the comments – the interactive element of the blog. Comments build on a post over time and form a conversation between the author and the readers as well as between readers themselves. Most true blogs actively encourage comments.

Of course it is possible to use a blogging system such as WordPress just as a content management system (CMS) for a traditional website, however such sites are unlikely to be recognised as blogs despite the underlying technical platforms.

Next: Blogs are Interactive

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Blogs don’t have to use a dedicated blog publishing platform – but it certainly helps! The first “blog” I ever tried to run was written by hand-crafting hard-coded HTML. It didn’t last long before the hassle of manually updating all the links became too much for me.

Today just about every blog out there uses some form of blogging system – Blogduction is running on WordPress. These systems take care of ensuring your latest post is on the front page, maintaining archives, handling categories and tags, etc. There are many options available, which is best for you? Well it depends on your level of experience, how comfortable you are with technical matters and what you want to achieve from blogging.

Broadly speaking modern blogging systems fall into two categories: provider hosted and self-hosted. Here’s a quick run down of the pros and cons of each.

Provider Hosted Blogs

The most famous and probably largest hosted blog provider is Blogger, now owned by Google. Many others also exist such as LiveJournal or wordpress.com. Some are free, some charge a fee, some are free but charge for extra features.

The advantage of these systems is that you don’t have to do anything except write. You don’t need to worry about installing software, owning a domain, paying for web hosting or anything technical. You just use a simple form on your browser and shazam! Your blog post is live on the web for all to see.

Some systems also have support for features such as community building – LiveJournal is particularly strong at this. If you’re looking to create a personal blog for socialising then these features could be very useful.

The downside of these systems is that everyone recognises them: they practically shout “amateur”. If you just want to chat with friends then a blog on blogspot.com might be fine – but if you want to look professional or do business then it won’t cut it.

You might also lose control of your blog – some systems let you backup your content to your PC, others don’t. In addition each service will have its own terms of use and definitions of acceptable content.

Self Hosted Blogs

Hosting your own blog is a lot simpler and cheaper than it used to be, but still requires you to be comfortable with the technical side of things. To host your own blog you will usually choose and register your own domain name then sign up for web hosting and install a blog publishing package such as WordPress (free open source).

Simply having your own domain makes your blog look more professional and gives you more flexibility. You also have far more control in terms of content, backing up the data, modifying your template, etc.

Of course all this means more work for you and will involve getting your hands dirty to at least some degree. You may have to do the installation and upgrades, fiddle with html and php files, do your own backups, etc.

How much technical stuff you need to do will depend largely on your web hosting provider. Some provide fully automated installs of WordPress etc – I’m using Dreamhost which does this. Others provide all the facilities to support installation but leave the work to you. Some don’t provide the necessary features (php, mysql database, etc) unless you pay for a premium account. Do your research first, see what others are saying before you choose your hosting provider.

Hybrid Blogs

Having said there are two options I now introduce the third way! Some blog providers allow you to use their system completely but have your blog appear to be hosted via your own domain, either via ftp publishing or by remapping the domain. This allows you the advantages of provider hosting without the “amateur” status implied by a shared domain such as blogspot.

Some people love these systems, personally I find them an uncomfortable mix. If I’m going to go to the effort of owning my own domain I’d rather go the whole way and install WordPress.

Decisions, Decisions

So, which is best? Well, if you’re totally new to blogging then I’d suggest starting with a free blog on Blogger. Think about making this a throwaway rather than something you want to keep forever. Treat it as a playground to get the feel for blogging and the terminology used.

Once you’re comfortable with the basics then the choice for your main blog really depends on your motives. If you’re running a commercial blog, want to make money blogging or want to be respected as an expert in your field then you definitely need your own domain name which probably means a self-hosted blog. WordPress is very popular but there are others such as Movable Type.

Don’t forget to check that your hosting provider supports the system requirements – as I said, I’ve had success using WordPress on Dreamhost.

Next: Blog timelines

What does “blog” stand for and where did the word come from? Well, it’s not an acronym, rather it’s an abbreviation of the term “web log” – an online journal. That’s still what many people think of as a traditional blog, an online account of life usually written via a blogging service such as Blogger or Livejournal. Early blogs tended to be personal and were often of interest only to one’s friends.

Things have moved on a lot since then. Today we have corporate blogs, subject based blogs such as this one, news blogs, celebrity blogs, blogs that are presented like magazines, social networks, micro-blogging – any number of variations.

How do we decide what is and what isn’t a blog? There’s no simple way, however I suggest that blogs tend to have at least some of the following features:

• Platform
  Most blogs use a dedicated publishing platform such as WordPress or Blogger.

• Timeline
  Most blogs follow a timeline, either internal or external

• Interactive
  Comments and reader interaction are the lifeblood of blogs

• Voice
  Writing style in blogs tends to be informal and personal

Those headings cover a lot of ground and I’ll be discussing each of them in more depth over the following few days. They aren’t unique to blogs of course, however I reckon that the more of those points a site can tick the more likely it is to be labelled as a blog.

Next: Blogging Platforms