The word "blog" is short for "weblog", and it describes a website that's frequently and easily updated, showing the most recent information first, with the ability to collect feedback from the community that reads the site.

But a better definition of blogging isn't about technology, it's about what the technology makes possible. Blogs are a safe, easy way to share information with the audiences you care about.

There are millions of blogs in the world, ranging from personal journals used to communicate with friends and family, to the large and growing number of business blogs used to help improve communications within an organization. Because blogging began in communities that were about personal expression, blogs are usually associated with having a more "human" or personal voice than the sometimes impersonal tone found on corporate websites.

Of course, if your company is staffed by a bunch of heartless robots, then you don't need to worry too much about tone of voice.

Assuming you're a normal human, you'll also find one problem in getting started with blogs: There's a lot of jargon. But don't worry, the technology itself isn't that complicated. As much as we'd like to avoid most of the jargon, we'll cover the essential terms you'll need to know, and offer translations as we go along.

So what's the basic terminology you'll need to know? Updating or maintaining a blog is called "blogging", and it has become one of the most popular ways to interact on the internet. Blogs can be used to share words, text, photos, movies, audio files, and anything else that helps people communicate with each other. And blogs can be delivered to an audience wherever they are, whether at a computer, a mobile phone, or a mobile device like an iPod. (If you've heard of "podcasting", this is how it works - you're delivering a media automatically.)

In short, blogging establishes a relationship between a site's publisher and its readers, and makes it easy to maintain that relationship over time.

What would a business want a blog?

By far, one of most common questions from business people is "Why the heck would I want a blog?" It's okay if you don't know what they're good for, or if you are a little bit skeptical of all the hype around business blogging.

For businesses and professionals, there are a few key reasons you might want to start a blog. Blogs make it easy to communicate more effectively with the audience you care about. It's the easiest way to update a website, provide simple and effective ways of automatically organizing the content you create, and notify your audience when your site has been updated. And blogs can also optionally allow you to collect feedback from that audience, either right on your own website or via traditional means such as email.

Blogs are often used by marketers or media companies to increase the number of visitors to a website, and inspire those visitors to return more frequently. Having a blog can also make your site more attractive to search engines, which means it's more likely your site will show up in the results when people search for your products or services. Think of how often you find a useful product or service by typing a few words into Google or some other search engine: With a blog, your company can show up in those results, too.

Having a public blog can also inspire positive reactions from your customers or audience. You can use a blog to improve community relations or as an important part of a crisis management plan. In short, a public blog makes your company seem more approachable and human, and those traits will serve you well if you need to engage in a dialogue with your customers or community. By letting them in on the fact that real people work at your business, you get a few simple benefits:

• Potential customers will like your company better, because they'll feel like they "know" someone who works there.
• Your community will be able to discover new products or services that you create, and can provide feedback .
• Customers will be more forgiving of mistakes or glitches, because it's easier to see that real people make mistakes, but we expect corporations to be perfect.

Public blogs are a great complement to the communications technologies you already use, such as email newsletters, conference calls, or mailings. And the messages you send using a blog can be automatically delivered to your audience wherever they are: On their browser's start page, in their email inbox, to their mobile phone, or on any other mobile device.

Many companies also create private weblogs for use within an organization, to simplify tasks like project tracking, workgroup collaboration, or process management. Inside your company, blogs take a place alongside knowledge management tools, portal applications, and email.

How do I get a blog?

Blogging is an inexpensive, simple technology, making it easy to get started. There's two ways to get started with blogging:

• Installable blogging software
• Hosted blogging services.

So what's the difference? Installable software such as Movable Type is maintained on a web server you control and offers the most options for customization and integration. Installing software on your own server is the best option if you're interested in keeping private blogs on an intranet or network, and have a team that is comfortable with some technical requirements.

Hosted solutions such as TypePad let you simply sign up with a service to get started, require the least amount of management effort, and are the best option if you want to get a public-facing blog up and running quickly. A hosted service is a great choice if you don't have easy access to an IT or IS department, or don't want to involve a technical team in your deployment.

Most organizations that deploy blogs start by selecting a technology platform (see "Evaluating blogging platforms") and then choose an advocate for the blogging effort (see "How to be a blog advocate within your organization"). Your blogging advocate can be a staff member or an external consultant. To get started, you can experiment with low-cost or free services that let you try out the technology without incurring a lot of risk or obligation.

Why would I want more than one blog?

Most organizations that deploy blogs end up creating and managing more than one. It's easy to understand why.

First, many large companies are using blogs as a simple but powerful way to share information on an intranet without a lot of cost or complexity. In these cases, it makes sense to create a new blog every time you need one:

• A blog for each workgroup that wants to share updates with the whole company
• A blog for each of your products, talking about features, tips and tricks, or promotional offers
• A blog for each project team that wants to talk about its milestones or progress
• A blog for executive leaders who want to communicate about goals, or even
• A blog for each employee in an information-focused or services company

Basically, blogs are like email in that you might set up a blog for each project or group just like you'd set up an email list or group for a project. The difference is, people who aren't members of that group can discover the information on the blog if you let them, and the archive is easier to search and retrieve than messages that are locked away in an inbox.

Ever had to wait to get added to a relevant email list for information on a project, or found out that the information you were looking for was sent to the list before you subscribed? Once your team gets in the habit of putting that information on a blog, you don't need to worry about either of these problems.

If you're using blogs as a communication or promotional tool to the public, it makes sense to have one blog for each of the audiences you're talking to. General Motors' Movable Type-powered GM Blogs site does a great job with this on its two flagship blogs. The sites differ in approach but share a sensibility, from Fastlane, a blog about car models and designs, to FYI Blog, a general-interest blog about company news.

What these blogs have in common is a tight focus on a single audience and a sense of purpose that's reflected in a single-topic blog. Whether it's inside your company or to the world at large, it makes sense to have one blog per conversation. A single blog for each communication channel is easy since blogging tools let you keep track of all those conversations easily.

For the readers of your blogs, it's easy to discover the content they're looking for, since blog posts can automatically be organized into archives

CHECK OUT THE SITES:

• Vespa's Vespaway: http://www.vespaway.com/
• General Motors' Fastlane: http://fastlane.gmblogs.com/
• General Motors' FYI Blog: http://fyi.gmblogs.com/

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