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.
Rating: 
Summary: Opinion of a Newcomer
Review: Rebecca Blood's book, The Weblog Handbook, proved to me, as a newcomer to weblogs and and self-professed technophobe, to be extremely useful and accessible. Her clear and semi-formal language was comforting and inviting. I felt as if she were talking to me as a friend with a common interest; her tone was one that seemed to anticipate and respect my trepidation. In addition to her language and tone, I found the content of her book to be extremely useful. I have to confess to not having read similar books, and cannot adequately compare her work to others like it. I found particularly useful, nonetheless, her description of the possibilities for weblogs, possibilities that I had not previously considered. I also appreciate her "netiquette" advice that, if taken to heart, will make weblogs, and the web in general, a welcoming and productive place. Her book definitely piques my interest in weblogs, as well as my desire to participate in them.
Rating:
Summary: The Weblog Handbook
Review: Rebecca Blood's handbook on blogging is an excellent guide for beginners. This book provides information on everything from creating a blog for the first time to maintaining an existing blog. Blood includes sections on weblog etiquette and ethics, which is especially helpful for those who are just starting to blog. Throughout the book she also includes relevant links. Her tone is informal, which makes the book an interesting and easy read.
Rating:
Summary: The Weblog Handbook
Review: Rebecca Blood's handbook on blogging is an excellent guide for beginners. This book provides information on everything from creating a blog for the first time to maintaining an existing blog. Blood includes sections on weblog etiquette and ethics, which is especially helpful for those who are just starting to blog. Throughout the book she also includes relevant links. Her tone is informal, which makes the book an interesting and easy read.
Rating:
Summary: Blogging for dummies
Review: Rebecca Blood's work invites the novice weblogger into what is obviously a personal space for her. Her constant reminders to readers that a blog is a blogger's own space underscores the democratic nature of blogging. I often had to put this book down -- so that I could get onto my blog and apply a feature or find a link she noted. The work is a bit redundant at times with several statements of what should be obvious to most post-pubescents: don't flame, don't blog when angry, remember that people are reading . . . . Still, I recommend the book for new webloggers.
Rating:
Summary: Well Written -- Great Information
Review: The sub-title of this book -- Practical Advice on Creating and Maintaining Your Blog -- is dead on, delivering just that. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book. It is not a book about the mechanics of blogging. Rather, it is about the experience. This is a good book for beginners, or those who want to rejuvinate their blog.I am an instant fan of Rebecca Blood and her website because of this book.
Rating:
Summary: Best book about the weblog phenomenon so far
Review: The sub-title says it all: this book really gives you all the practical advice to run your own, personal Blog. Furthermore Rebecca succeeds in defining the "what" and the "why" of blogging. Congratulations! In chapters 3 to 7 you'll learn all about Creating, Maintaining, Voice, Audience, Community, Etiquette and Living Online with your new "toy". Attention for useres searching for blogging-technology! Rebecca only alludes technological things very casually ... So I'll do not give all the 5 stars but I warmly recommend this book to everyone who is planning to run his own, personal Blog.
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Summary: Teaching a writing teacher to blog
Review: The Weblog Handbook is now an addition to my Rhetoric and Composition Studies bookshelf. While Blood does not explicitly make recommendations for teachers, this text is insightful on how and why such writing online deserves attention. Her easy-to-read chapters have prompted me to ask my students to move beyond email and instant messaging and into a blog with the hope that they become more mindful of word choice, style, content and audience.
Rating:
Summary: A weblog book for adults
Review: This book is a worthy attempt at a weblog book for adults. It's not in-your-face evangelism about how weblogs are going to change the world. It's not a hands-on guide to installing and using weblog publishing software. It doesn't have a lot to say about how weblog technology works behind the scenes. What this book does cover (in a measured, thoughtful way), are the personal and social aspects of weblogging. How to think through whether weblogging is for you. The unexpected but practical benefits of running a weblog, like increased self-confidence and improving your writing skills. How to fit researching and maintaining a weblog into your life, and what to do when it turns from a pleasant hobby into a chore. How to deal with too many or too few readers. How to avoid revealing too much personal information, and how to retain the respect of your readers in the face of wildly differing opinions. Also covered is the author's personal view of the history and development of weblogging, and an attempt to classify weblogs into different types. These aspects, though are secondary to the main focus of the book. The book handles more like a paperback novel than a typical computer book. It's small, relatively thin, and has no illustrations. The author has a comfortable, easy-reading style, but is occasionally repetitive. I guess that's the fallout from years of condensed and pithy weblog posts.
Rating:
Summary: A weblog book for adults
Review: This book is a worthy attempt at a weblog book for adults. It's not in-your-face evangelism about how weblogs are going to change the world. It's not a hands-on guide to installing and using weblog publishing software. It doesn't have a lot to say about how weblog technology works behind the scenes. What this book does cover (in a measured, thoughtful way), are the personal and social aspects of weblogging. How to think through whether weblogging is for you. The unexpected but practical benefits of running a weblog, like increased self-confidence and improving your writing skills. How to fit researching and maintaining a weblog into your life, and what to do when it turns from a pleasant hobby into a chore. How to deal with too many or too few readers. How to avoid revealing too much personal information, and how to retain the respect of your readers in the face of wildly differing opinions. Also covered is the author's personal view of the history and development of weblogging, and an attempt to classify weblogs into different types. These aspects, though are secondary to the main focus of the book. The book handles more like a paperback novel than a typical computer book. It's small, relatively thin, and has no illustrations. The author has a comfortable, easy-reading style, but is occasionally repetitive. I guess that's the fallout from years of condensed and pithy weblog posts.
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