What is Blogging? Blogging 101

Blogging refers to the practice of updating an online journal. These can be hosted on one's personal website or a service such as Blogger. Bloggers are able to post blogs which will usually be displayed on the front page, with recent blogs towards the top and older blogs towards the bottom or on other pages. There is usually no limit to how much or how little one must blog. Blogs may be long or short. Longer blogs usually are posted on websites such as Blogger, whereas shorter blogs, known as microblogs, are hosted on websites such as Twitter.

Blogs can be shared by multiple people posting on one blog, whether it is with one account or via multiple accounts. They may be about any topic one wishes to write about. Blogs needn't be pertaining to one particular topic nor a myriad of topics. They aren't required to be entirely grammatically correct.

Blogs can be made public, private, or only viewable to the bloggers themselves. People who read the blog or find interest in it may choose to "follow" the blog by subscribing to email updates or RSS feeds pertaining to the blog. Some blogs have hundreds of thousands of followers, some have no followers whatsoever.

Blogs must obey the terms of service agreements of the service hosting them, and may be deleted by the service if they violate those terms.

xo Science

What is Twitter? Twitter 101

Twitter is a website requiring registration. Users must provide an email, a display name, and a requested URL (example: www.twitter.com/xoScience). After registration, users are able to post short messages of 140 characters (or less), including spaces, punctuation, and symbols. One's Twitter account is able to be connected to Instant Messaging clients to act as a status message relayer, as well as Facebook, MySpace, and other Internet-connected accounts.

Usage of the @ (at) sign is used to direct messages towards a user. Example:

xoScience: @Engineering: Do you feel like ordering chips?

Users are able to "re-tweet", or "RT" messages from other users. Example:

Math: Numbers are fun.
xoScience: RT@Math: Numbers are fun.

Usage of the # (hashtag) serves the purpose of tagging a post. "Tagging" assigns the post a label, usually related to its topic.

xoScience: #Twitter seems to be down, so how am I able to post this?

Users are able to search for these messages, known as "tweets", via a search box or external search engines. They can search for users, tweets about themselves, or tweets relating to certain topics.

Search for: @Math
xoScience: Do you want to have lunch later today, @Math?
Engineering: @Math is being a real pain today.  

Math: RT @Math is being a real pain today.

Any terms of service violations, such as inappropriate content, harassment, or spam, may result in an account being suspended.

If a user does not want certain other users to be able to tweet them or view their profile, they are able to block them.

xo Science