What’s All The Fuss About Blogs?

You’ve heard the term enough; you even see that you are on one now. But what are they exactly, and how do they fit into your busy lifestyle? I thought I’d take a few moments today to help unravel some of the mystery of blogs.

What is a blog? A blog is basically a ‘journal’ of posts that are written by someone, usually on a theme. At AgilityFusion our theme is agility and life, combing both into something less technical and more fun for the everyday agility enthusiast. I write some posts, but I also draw from multiple sources and even other editors to bring interesting posts and videos together in one place that I think you will enjoy.

How often should I visit? Some blog websites are neglected. You might visit them and there hasn’t been fresh content in ages. At AgilityFusion we have been working hard to keep this from happening. You may have noticed that there have been a lot more posts lately.

How do I move around a blog? On the ‘home page’ of a blog the most recent blogs are shown.They may show one or more of them on the page, depending on how long they are. After that they sort of ‘scroll off” the page into other areas. They are stored for you to find in (1) categories (2) tags: which are sort of sub-category trails you can follow, and are located below each post (3) by month(4) manually searching using the search bar. AgilityFusion also has a “master article” page where all our popular posts are stored.

How can I remember to read the blog? Here are a few suggestions for blog-tracking in a busy life:
Wait until you get a Friday email from us (register to make sure you get it!) and then read the week’s worth of posts.
Set AgilityFusion as your home page on your web browser.You’ll then be able to read the daily post as they come.
Use a RSS Reader. If you have other blogs that you’d like to read, instead of visiting each one separately, you can add the blogs to a “reader” and read all the fresh content in one place. Google’s Reader is one that I use. Other popular web-based ones are My Yahoo, Bloglines, and netvibes. You can also get free ones to download to your own computer. On most blogs you will see a little link that says “RSS Feed” and a little orange symbol. By clicking this, you will usually be taken to a page of html code. Copy the URL and then paste it into the “subscribe” area of your RSS Feeder. Sometimes you will be taken to a page where you click on your reader instead. (Note: you can also subscribe to RSS Comments as well, and view these in your Reader too.)

What else is a blog good for? Community! Helping one another! This is all done in the “comments” area of each and every post. There, people will read and answer any questions you may have.