Product Description

Almost overnight, blogging has become a social, political, and business force to be reckoned with. Your fellow students, workers, and competitors are joining the blogosphereand making money, influencing elections, getting hired, growing market share, and having funto the tune of 8,000 new bloggers a day.

Clear Blogging sets out to answer in nontechnical terms what blogging has to offer and why and how you should blog. If youve never read a blog, but you keep hearing that term on the news, Clear Blogging will show you why blogging has shaken up mainstream media, and how a blogger can end up on CNN. If youre just starting to read blogs, Clear Blogging is your native guide to the blogosphere, covering how to get the best, most interesting information with the least amount of time and effort. The main course of Clear Blogging shows what you stand to gain from blogging, and how you can go from your first post to being welcomed aboard the blogospheres A-list.

Whether youre already blogging or youre considering it, youll want to get a copy of this book because it

• Covers how blogging can improve your job prospects, professional practice, business revenue, company reputation, and the world you live in
• Includes over 50 interviews with successful bloggers who are influencing products, policy makers, potential employers, and millions of the general publicall while earning an online reputation and real profits
• Shows you how to apply the best practices of news gathering to build your blogs reputation and brand
• Is heavy on the specific benefits of blogging and light on the technological aspects

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #56281 in Books
• Published on: 2007-02-05
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 351 pages

About the Author
Bob Walsh has been a contract software developer in the San Francisco Bay area for the past 22 years, specializing in desktop information systems. His company, Safari Software, Inc., has for the past decade amazingly focused on the same thing, albeit at a higher hourly rate.

In 2003, as outsourcing finished what the dot.com bust started, he developed MasterList Standard Version, an Excel-based project and task management application. Two years and 40,000 users later, Safari Software, Inc., became a real live tooting micro-ISV by releasing MasterList Professional, a Windows personal project and task management application that, unlike traditional time management tools, gives you total control over your business and personal life while improving how you spend your time.

Before joining the ranks of the computer industry, Walsh was a reporter for several news organizations, most worth bragging about being United Press International (UPI).

Customer Reviews

Probably the best out there, but not perfect
Although there are hundreds of blogging books in print, from my surveying this one appears to be the most relevant practical guide -- so I gave it an extra star. I liked it for the following reasons:

(+) good tips on building readership (plus some SEO)
(+) explanations of importance of garnering and giving referent links
(+) practical tips on monetization
(+) coverage of some useful tools I might not have otherwise discovered
(+) highlighting some popular blogging platforms
(+) engaging writing style
(+) accessible as a book you could give to a co-worker, or even less-technical family member
(+) gets reader excited about blogging

However, it has the following problems:

(-) some material highly subject to aging (e.g., blogger how-to steps could have been omitted)
(-) promotion of some obnoxious tools (e.g., White Smoke grammar helper, user-unfriendly Microsoft Live Spaces)
(-) very little mention of WordPress (you wouldn't realize its popularity by reading this book)
(-) not enough emphasis on blog *reading* (Google Reader got one sentence, but its features and best practices could been expanded to a whole chapter). Optimizing your reading habits/patterns is a critical skill for surviving blog-bombardment
(-) no mention of the role of pinging (and necessity by some services)
(-) too many interviews (police wives and military perspectives didn't add anything for me)
(-) a number of grammar and spelling mistakes
(-) audience target may have been too broad (I would expect Apress to have had a better techie focus)

Overall, I thought the book could have been half the length and still had the same impact. But as a new blogger I got quite a bit out of the book, and I still recommend it to anyone who is not already a pro. Just be prepared to do a lot of skimming, and try to get a library/used copy that has important points highlighted.

The one book you should read about blogging
If you are going to recommend just one book to someone who wants to get started reading, following and creating a blog, this is the book. Author Bob Walsh goes far beyond the usual treatment of the topic and gives you tons of practical tips, suggestions and information about resources. I've been blogging for over a year and I learned a ton from Bob's book. Don't waste your time with other books, go right to source and read this one. I highly recommend it.

Good Primer For Business
To put it succinctly, Clear Blogging is the kind of book I would give to a boss or manager to educate them about what blogging is, can be, and a hint of technicalities on the back end. While a good book and a great overview of what is entailed with blogging, there are not enough nitty-gritty details to satisfy someone who is of a technical nature or someone who has been blogging for a while.

However, for someone who needs to know what this blogging thing is about and how they might be able to use it for their business, either directory or indirectly, this is the perfect place to start. I would estimate that at least half of the book is made up of interviews with either bloggers, people who run blogging companies, or marketing type folk. These interviews, though they get a little long and predictable after a while, lend real life examples to the lessons being taught.

Additionally, there is sufficient attention given to topics such as podcasting, monetization, and social networking to give you a good start on finding out more about these areas.

All in all, for any body wondering where to get started, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend Clear Blogging. And if you are already in to blogging, I will bet this book can still teach you a few things.