Rating: 
Summary: The accumulated wisdom of an expert.
Review: I just finished re-reading The Weblog Handbook after having first read through it in depth this weekend. It's a great book, and the greatest compliment I can pay it is that it does an excellent job of keeping its author's voice. I focused on the presence of RCB's voice because I thought that no book could do justice to the topic of weblogs without being true to one of their defining characteristics, a strong personal perspective.As the book is clearly targeted at an audience that is already at least familiar with, and most likely patrons of, weblogs, I was a bit hesitant of the tone being too boosterish. Most of the "For Dummies" books (not that this is one) spend time trying to convince their audience to be enthused about a topic that they've already (1) bought a book about and (2) accepted their "dummy" status regarding. This book assumes you're already sold. While there is undoubtedly enthusiasm, there's a healthy dose of reality about what it takes to start and maintain a decent blog. ("If, after spending your workday at the computer, the last thing you want to do when you get home is turn on your PC, you should probably take up knitting or join a film club instead.") There is a deliberate aversion to getting too in-depth with any of the weblogging tools, which isn't surprising given the fact that Rebecca's Pocket is maintained with manually created HTML and FTP. I'd suggest that this is one area (the *only* area, actually) where the author's proclivities diverged from the interests many readers would have, as the cursory mentions of the tools as being essentially fungible ignore the reality that the overwhelming majority of webloggers use one of the handful of prominent tools like Blogger, Radio, LiveJournal and Movable Type. I'm willing to cede the argument that a discussion of those tools might have taken the book from Handbook territory into the Technical Guide realm. The most cogent and important thoughts in The Weblog Handbook have nothing to do with "Practical Advice on Creating and Maintaining" a weblog, they have to do with understanding the social context and media implications of weblogs, both as readers and writers/editors. The first chapter details how weblogs promote social literacy, and the motif recurs throughout the book, prompting some thought-provoking sections on weblog ethics and responsible methods of promoting one's own site. I was concerned, on my first reading, with the few mentions of specific URLs and events like the World Trade Center attacks as points of reference. Another trip through the text removes a lot of my concern, as the points probably stood out more to me due to my perspective, and they're only used as context, and any worries that they might seem dated are silly in the context of a book that's about a phenomenon that's only a few years old. The whole *book* will, hopefully, seem dated in a relatively short time. The fact that Weblog Madness is mentioned a few times during the text and has since shut down only underscores the inherently transient nature of the web, and doesn't negate the value of the ideas expressed. It might serve the book well to have the list all of the ...referenced URLs for each chapter, along with (perhaps) updated links. Most of the audience will also probably be concerned about a preponderance of "a-list" mentions or inside jokes, and there are, honestly, none. Fortunately absent, also, is any significant attention to the loud but worthless in-fighting that plagues a few small clusters of the weblog community. There's a healthy respect for the fact that these never affect the other 99% of the weblog world. I'd raise a bit of contention over the book being labelled a "handbook", as my perception of that format is a little more structured and textbookish. That's a small hair to split, though, as the narrative tone suits the topics perfectly. So, was there anything revelatory in the book for me? Not really. But I've been doing this for, well... about as long as RCB. I didn't expect to have some "A-ha!" moment, especially since I've had the privilege of discussing a lot of these topics with her in person. For the book's *intended* audience, however, I think there's a great deal of insight, ideas that I know I didn't stumble across until I'd been doing this for a year or two. Considering the book's cheaper than a single CD, it seems likely that a lot of people who either just jumped into the blog world, or are just about to, might spring for it to give them a leg up. I hope they do; They'll be better webloggers for having read it.
Rating:
Summary: I liked the book, found it helpful...
Review: I really liked the book. I would have liked some helpful guides on how to use more of the blogging tools that are out there, but I suppose that I'm just not being realistic, that'd take alot more work. I've tried a few blogging tools and none of them are easy to use or have a good getting-started guide. But Rebecca's book is really good to get you going in general. Lots of good history and general getting started in blogging info. I got her book right after I started my blog ... and I've found her insight to be very helpful in ensuring that I make a blog that is worth looking at and reading. So I think that most people would find the book very helpful, as well as interesting.
Rating: 
Summary: Commonsense at a price
Review: I was disappointed in this highly recommended book. Ms Blood offers undoubtedly heartfelt advice, but there is nothing here that could not be found on the Web. It's just a compendium of advice, much of which should be apparent to any intelligent, mannerly person. To wit: "You will never need to be ashamed of anything you have written if you are always respectful of others and their opinions, and if your thoughts are well reasoned and carefully expressed" and gems such as "Do not misrepresent other people's positions."
Overall, the book has nothing to do with the mechanics of blogging, such as setting up your blog.
For people who are perhaps shy or frightened of expressing their opinions in public, Ms. Blood's book might prove of value as a crutch, a rules of the road for engaging in public discourse through a blog or other journal.
But for anyone who already possesses rudimentary social skills and has an interest in expressing their opinion to a hopefully wide audience, "The Weblog Handbook" will be of little use. A much better choice would be either "Blog On" or "Blogging: Genius Strategies for Instant Web Content." Both offer, in less detailed form, the same philosophy proffered by Ms. Blood, but also contain more down-to-earth advice on creating, managing, administering and publicizing your blog. Jerry
Rating:
Summary: Weblogs for Dummies
Review: If you already have a blog of your own and have been posting to it for more than a month, or if you have been reading blogs for a while, then you have no need for this book. I'm not even sure that this book is necessary to understand weblogs or the weblog community if you are anything but a novice to the Internet. But I shouldn't underestimate cluelessness, so if you feel in need of Blogs for Dummies, this is that mistitled book. That might seem harsh from a guy who only started his own blog a month ago, and I truly mean no disservice to Rebecca Blood, whose earnestness is apparent in every personal anecdote. But there's no denying that this is a short, simple book--perhaps because a blog, in its basic form (a regularly updated web page where new information is arranged in reverse chronological order), is a very simple thing. The beauty of the form is in the voices of its authors, and, as Blood states herein, that often grows organically as the blog author constantly writes. I read this book not so much for myself (although I had hoped to pick up something of use for my personal site) but as a possible book to hand to co-workers to help explain what blogs are and how we were experimenting with them as a business knowledge management tool. It fails for that purpose, too, unfortunately, as the concentration is on individuals doing it for themselves.
Rating:
Summary: Misleading title, Good for beginners
Review: If you just heard or have never heard of blogging: ***** Blood's book is a book about ideas, not the nuts and bolts. Most people can gather what blood has outlined through experience and reading other blogs. She covers great material in a straightforward manner, but this book does not desearve rave reviews. What Blood does great is introduces Weblogging to an audience who might not want to start a blog, but is curious about the culture. Her passion is evident, and for a beginner, absolute-just-heard-of-blogging-and-wants-to-know-more person, this is the perfect book. Conceptually, this book is a great help. If you know or have any experience with bloging, you might try elsewhere, this read might be boring. She gives great examples, but they are difficult to understand because there are no real to life visuals. Great, easy read, okay execution, but not for experienced bloggers.
Rating:
Summary: Climb your blogging learning curve painlessly
Review: In short: Blogalicious. Got it from Amazon on Monday. Read it in two long sittings, one at the Sizzler. It felt like reading Rebecca's blog, a comfortable, conversational tone. I liked the book's organization and her choices of what to talk about. Practical, hard earned advice from which newbies and those who teach them will benefit. We don't have a visual vocabulary for blogspace, but it doesn't matter. I kept expecting to see checklists, diagrams and graphics to illustrate the lessons; but so many of her ideas are truly abstract or human, from the worlds of words, relationships, conversation, and writing. Rebecca's easy writing style takes you there without the typical textbook doodads. The text feels good in my hand too. Nice size. If you're holding workshops at school or work for new webloggers, this unintimidating book covers the social, technical, and ethical bases. I eagerly await my copy of Rebecca's next book, "We've Got Blog."
Rating:
Summary: the weblog handbook
Review: Long-time weblogger Rebecca Blood's The Weblog Handbook: Practical Advice on Creating and Maintaining Your Blog is an excellent introduction to the currently white-hot world of weblogs. Blood covers all the bases, from a history of the weblog form, through starting a blog of your own, and finally onto finding (and retaining) readers for your site. The book doesn't offer as much for the veteran blogger, but even the bloggeratti won't go away completely empty-handed -- Blood's weblog history provides a valuable common vocabulary for debating what is and isn't a weblog, and her discussion of weblog ethics should be required reading for anybody who claims to be serious about their weblogging. Blood begins the book in the obvious place, with a discussion of the history of the weblog format, and a functional definition of what a weblog is (and isn't). One issue with the word "weblog" as it is currently used is that it means little more than "website with time-stamped entries arranged in reverse chronological order". Blood attempts to expand on that definition by pointing out that the other thing weblogs have in common, in addition to chronological formatting convention, is "the primacy of the link": It is the link that gives weblogs their credibility by
creating a transparency that is impossible in any other
medium. It is the link that creates the community in which
weblogs exist. It is the link the distinguishes the weblog --
or any other piece of online writing -- from old-media
writing that has merely been transplanted to the Web. One of my primary objections to this section of the book was the contradiction between the above position and Blood's inclusion, earlier in the same chapter, of "blog"- and "notebook"-style sites under the weblogs banner. "Blog"-style sites, in the book's taxonomy, are the nano-journals that showed up in the wake of easy-to-use tools like Pitas and Blogger. These web-based weblogging applications made it easy to let the world know when you were getting up from your desk to go pee -- and thousands of people jumped at the chance to do just that. "Notebook"-style web sites, on the other hand, are characterized by longer chunks of content; they tend to resemble essay collections more than anything else. Both types of sites are markedly different in content and authorial intent from the traditional "filter" style weblogs -- collections of links, annotated with short (or sometimes not so short) descriptions, reviews, or reactions. The former two styles of sites seem to be to be fundamentally different than the latter style, primarily in the extent to which they're inwardly versus externally focused. "Filter" weblogs link almost exclusively to other sites, and they link heavily -- usually averaging at least one link per entry, if not more. "Blogs" and "notebooks", on the other hand, have a much lower frequency of external linking, and are much more self-referential and insular than "filter" style sites. The three sorts of sites share similar formats and are produced with similar tools, but I would argue that referring to all of them as "weblogs" makes the word so generic as to render it useless as a description. Quibbles over these taxonomic issues aside, The Weblog Handbook's introduction and definition of the "blog", "notebook", and "filter" terms to refer to the various sorts of sites that are collectively known as "weblogs" is a valuable contribution. Hopefully these words will be adopted by other writers in subsequent discussions of weblog history and form. Blood moves on from the initial historical overview to a discussion of why someone would want to take the time and make the effort to start and maintain a weblog. She covers all the main bases: improving writing skills, improving thinking skills, and networking for personal or business reasons. This chapter might help you think of some new way to leverage your weblog to your advantage, but otherwise it struck me as somewhat redundant -- presumably, if you're interested enough to undertake reading a 200 page book about weblogs, you're interested enough to try running one for a week or a month and see what benefits you get from the exercise. The next pair of chapters cover setting up a weblog. The target here is the new blogger, and depending on your level of technical sophistication, you might find the coverage a bit simplistic. Nevertheless, these chapters contain sound advice about choosing tools, about some of the conventions of the weblog community (permalinks, archives, sidebars), and about the all-important step of choosing a name for your weblog. After covering set-up, Blood dives into the business of actual creation: how to start writing weblog entries, and how to get better at it over time. Blood also covers strategies for attracting and retaining readers, tempering those tips with the sage advice that webloggers that are constantly striving to get more readers will never be happy with the reader population that they currently have. This is one of the more critical points that the book has to make, in my opinion, and Blood does a good job of driving home the notion that there are better (and easier) ways of becoming famous than starting a weblog. The sixth chapter, covering weblog community, ethics, and etiquette, is one of the book's most important. New bloggers that read this section will learn how to avoid offending established webloggers while they are starting out in the community. Bloggers that heed Blood's rules for ethical weblogging may even avoid getting sued for libel. Additionally, Blood deserves further kudos for making this section of the book freely available on her website. The Weblog Handbook is a well-written, well-rounded, thoughtful introduction to the art and practice of maintaining a weblog. The author, Rebecca Blood, has taken her years of experience gained maintaining her own weblog, boiled it down into concise nuggets of information and advice, and then presented it with a vigor and enthusiasm which clearly reflects her love for the weblog form. Recommended for novice and old-school webloggers alike.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Marketing, Wordy, Alll-and--all, A Good Read
Review: Loved the historical review, the tone of the insider whispering to the novice. Would have liked to have seen some screen captures and quotes from exemplarly blogs. I appreciate Blood's description of her process, particularly her dedication, her focus on clear writing. I disagree w/ the notion that blogger's shoudn't use rewrite tools, though I understand the spirit of her defense of the archive....I guess I can't get over the desire to rewrite. My major complaint w/ this book is that it's wordy. After a while, say 25 pages, it repeats itself.
Rating:
Summary: Not a "How-to", but a "Why-to"
Review: Rebecca Blood doesn't waste her time -- or yours -- with tips and tricks relating to a piece of software which is probably out-of-date before it is delivered to your door. She doesn't assume that her readers are "Dummies." She isn't interested in nudges and winks to the blogging community. Instead, she presents a passionate, lucid guide to the essence of blogging. In the 190 pages of text, Blood demonstrates over and again that blogging is all about self-discovery. You will most likely not find a huge audience, she tells us, but you will find that you are a better writer than you were before you started blogging. You probably won't be a huge influence on public policy, but you will hone your reasoning and filtering skills by engaging the topics you care about. You may not ever make a penny from your blog, but you can improve your reputation and your standing in your industry by becoming a resource and a reference point. For the most part, bloggers seem to be thoughtful people and I cannot imagine any weblog writer -- or any online diarist or creative writer, for that matter -- fiinishing this book without a renewed belief in the purpose and value of their endeavor.
Rating:
Summary: Composing in Cyberspace
Review: Rebecca Blood's "The Weblog Handbook: Practical Advice on Creating and Maintaining Your Blog" is a necessity for anyone wishing to enter into the burgeoning world of cyber-composition. Her expert advice is aimed at the raw beginner and will take one through each step of creating one's own weblog. Besides information on creating and maintaining a weblog, she offers counsel on finding the writer's "voice," and finding an online audience. She also puts emphasis on the web "community" and its unique set of social guidelines, not the least of which is a repeated emphasis on ethics. While the 'net exhibits myriad examples of boorish, self-interested drivel, Blood wants her readers to be responsible bloggers who have meaningful things to say. I would recommend this book to anyone who wishes to get into the blogging world as well as for teachers of composition.
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