Customer Reviews

Blogging: Genius Strategies for Instant Web Content

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I'd only been blogging for about a month and decided I needed a little help because I had NO IDEA how to change or format my blog. Genius Strategies led me into the murky world of HTML tags and other technicalities. This book gave me some excellent ideas to tweak my blog format and has given me the confidence to try some things which I might not have otherwise experimented with. I recommend this book if you're a beginner or a seasoned blogger. The technical information is top-notch and the resources in the appendix will occupy you for hours.

I have been building websites for about a year. Because of my past knowledge, the first 2/3 of the book was stuff I already knew.

The cool thing about this book is that it can take a person from absolute beginer to experienced blogger in less than a week.

The book is filled with illistrations and can be easily be read in less than a day. If you are new to blogs this book would be excellent. If you already have some experience with blogs this book might be alright, but keep in mind it starts off assuming no knowledge of the internet.

Also, his genius thing is just a joke...he does not appear full of himself or take himself too seriously. Straightforward info where he does not talk over your head.

When I was curious about the social phenomenom of blogging, I looked through several books on the subject. The best of the lot was Blogging by Biz Stone. This book was very quick reading and helped me select a blogging software, which is a big decision you have to make right off the bat. You need to get a feel for whether you want to have somebody else host your blog or host it yourself. There is a decision to make on how much of the administrative tasks you want to take on. Biz's book allowed me to examine the popular blog providers and ferret out which provider was best for me. For someone that doesn't know HTML or CSS, there is a cut to the chase section to show you the basics. There are also some more advanced topics like group blogging, blogging for dollars, corporate blogging, syndication, and increasing blog site traffic. I highly recommend Blogging if you want to learn the basics of blogging in an easily readable book. Thanks, Biz.

I sent this email to Biz about his book:

I have been tweaking my blog for a few months, I think I got it all set up. I bought your Blogging book and the one from the company with the animals on the cover. (What's with that? Gr Animals for the tech world?) Anyway the other book sits and yours is all tore up with notes in the margins etc. Thanks again

It explains what it is all about, how to do it and how to tweak it all so it works and people find out about it. Well written and very useful.

www.bigrick.fm

I spent hours surfing the Web researching blog tools, reading articles on blogging, etc. before reading this book. Big mistake! I would have saved 90% of my time (which 90% I don't know, of course) if I'd bought this book first. Stone focuses on making blogging actually work for you, giving lots of practical advice on the various software programs, and "inside" tools of blogging that are hard to figure out without spending all the time necessary to understand the blogging worldview and nomenclature (blogrolls, etc.). He even devotes a whole chapter to how to use your blog to make money through affiliate programs and blog-specific advertising media. Plenty of good illustrations, too.

Usually, I find most computer books to be more incredibly frustrating. Under most circumstances, I end up tossing the book aside and sit at the computer for hours on end to try and figure things out myself. Biz's book had just the opposite result: Problems that I was having with my blog were clearly outlined in Biz's book. Simple solutions are explained in a knowledgeable and entertaining style. If you're thinking of starting a blog, this book is well worth the price. Nobody beats the Biz!!!

If you're looking for a jokey rewrite of the instructions for one of the blog publishing services, this is the book for you. If you want advice that's practical and has some substance, you'll be better off with Rebecca Blood's Weblog Handbook.

This book tries to cover all aspects of blogging, from a bit of history, through creating and managing a small personal journal, to using blog technology as a corporate marketing tool. Along the way it covers an interesting variety of hints, tips and suggestions on how to make a blog look stylish, how to draw more visitors, and so on. It even covers an overview of using and writing blog-related applications and some thoughts about what might come next.

This book does well at communicating the excitement of blogging. If you are not raring to have a go by the end of the book, you're probably not cut out for life on the web. But beware, The world of blogging is astonishingly fast moving and fashion-conscious, so a book such as this can very quickly loose its cutting edge.

The main limitation of this book is the way it concentrates so much on one blogging system (Blogger), and assumes a particular way of working. On the up-side, the system it describes is probably the most popular, but that can so easily change.

If you would like to run a blog using the Blogger software or the Blog*Spot hosting service, and want to really get the most out of it, this is a great book. If you might be interested in other software and approaches, it's less vital, but still contains a lot of useful and interesting material.

Biz Stone's "Blogging: Genius Strategies for Instant Web Content" is well-written, comprehensive, thorough and entertaining. Starting from ground zero, Biz explains how to create a blog, compares blogging service providers & programs and offers suggestions generating income via a blog. He also explains how to create group and corporate blogs for more efficient teamwork and dynamic communication.

More than a basic blogging manual, Biz's book goes on to explain more complicated and sophisticated aspects of blogging such as Cascading Style Sheets, Sideblogs and Email Blogs and Syndicating A Blog. This book rapidly and easily develops the absolute beginner into a fairly sophisticated blogger.

As a community college instructor in the area of computer graphic art and multimedia design, I strongly recommend this book for people who are eager to create an attractive, complete weblog even though he or she may know very little about weblogs when they pick up the book.

I bought Biz's bumper blogging book a couple of weeks ago here in Sydney, after looking at 5 or 6 other books, with the objective of writing a Blog about crime, corruption, conspiracy and collusion in Australia (and we have some of that <g>) .... I found the tome to be (a) very readable (b) quite easy to understand (c) and a great guide to getting going as a blogster. Result - managed to get a reasonable Blog up and quite presentable within 24 hours.

The book is also full of some great ideas on publicity, earning a few groats and style. All up, a really good book.