You've seen the word, you've seen the web sites and you may even have one.  But have you ever wondered:  What's the big deal about blogs? This is Blogs in Plain English. To make sense of blogs, you have to think about the news and who makes it. We'll look at news in the 20th vs. the 21st century to make our point. In the 20th century, the news was produced professionally.  When news happened, reporters wrote the stories and a tiny group of people decided what appeared in a newspaper or broadcast. Professional news was mainstream: general and limited. The 21st century marked the point where news became both professional and personal.   A new kind of web site called a weblog or blog came onto the scene that let anyone be a reporter and publisher - often for free. As blogs became popular, they created millions of news sources and gave everyone an audience for their own version of news. Of course, we're using the word "news" loosely.  But really - isn't everything news to someone?  With a blog...A business owner can share news about his business A mother can share news about her family Or a sport star can share news with fans These people are all "bloggers". How did this happen? Well, blogs made sharing news on the web easy.  Anyone with an idea can start a new blog with the click of a button and share news minutes later. Here's how blogs work. Blogs are websites that are organized by blog posts - these are individual news stories, like articles in the paper. Bloggers simply fill out a form like this one to post a new story. With the click of a button, the blog post appears at the top of the web page, just above yesterday's news.  Over time, the blog becomes a collection of these posts, all archived for easy reference. Also, Each blog post can become a discussion through comments left by readers. Blogs make the news a two way street. But really, the fuss is not about how blogs work - it's about what people like you do with

Welcome to Wikis in Plain English. These four friends are going on a camping trip. They need to bring the right supplies because they're backpacking. The group needs to plan and plan well, so coordination is key. They're all computer users, so they start planning with an email. It's start with one, but then becomes a barrage. Email is not good at coordinating and organizing a group's input. This is the old way - Booo! The important information is scattered across everyone's inbox. This isn't coordination! Let's start over. There is a better way. It requires using a website called a wiki. Using a wiki, the group can coordinate their trip better. This is the new way - yaay! Most wikis work the same. They make it easy for everyone to change what appears on a webpage with a click of a button. It's as easy as erasing a word and rewriting it. The buttons are really important. There are two that are essential. They are "edit" and "save", and they are always used together. Let's see them in action. Here are our camping friends and here is a wiki website. Like all wikis, it has an edit button. Clicking this button, transforms the webpage into a document. All you have to do is click it and the webpage becomes a document ready for editing. Editing the page means you can add or remove words or change how they look, just like writing a letter. Once you're finished editing, you click save and the document becomes a webpage once again, and is ready for the next person to edit it - easy! Edit - Write - and Save. Using this process, a group can coordinate more easily. Let's apply this to our camping friends, who need to bring the right supplies. Mary signs up for a wiki site and then sees the new site for the first time. She clicks the edit button to get started. She creates two lists for camping: What we have and what we need. Under "we have" she lists the things she will bring: A cooler, stove and flashlight. Under "we need" she lists items

Welcome to RSS in Plain English. The Internet has problems. Technorati says there are 50 million weblogs, and as you can see, it's going up. This is overwhelming. Today's show is about a new and efficient way to keep up with all this cool stuff that's happening on the Internet. I'm going to talk about two ways that you can keep up with what's happening on the Web. There's the old slow way - Boo. Then, there's the new and fast way - Yay! Here's the difference between the new and the old way. This is you, and here are your favorite websites. You log on to your computer, and you're looking for something new. You go out to your favorite blogs. Anything new? No. You go out to your favorite news sites. Anything new? Nope. Every time you look for something new and its not there, you've wasted valuable time. This is the old way. Now, let's consider the new and fast way, which is simply taking these arrows and turning them the other direction. This means the new things from blogs and new things from your news sites come to you instead. It's like Netflix compared to the video store. So, what we're talking about is using a single website that becomes your home for reading all the new stuff that's coming from your favorite websites. There are two steps to getting started. The first step is you need a home for reading new posts. This is a website called a reader. It is free and all you need is an account. I use a site called Google Reader. It looks like this. My favorite sites are listed on the left, and on the right I can scroll through all the new posts from my favorite sites in a single place. So, to complete step one, you need to sign up for a reader. Google Reader, Bloglines, Newsgator, My Yahoo! are good places to start. Step number two, is to set up a connection between your reader and your favorite websites. Setting up these connections is called subscribing, and it's really important. Nearly every blog and news site offers the ability for you