FAQ About Blogging

I get quite a few questions from people about blogs, often how to set one up.  So I thought I’d put out some of the basics, Q&A style.

What is a blog?

A blog is simply a type of website, the name is short for web log. Typically a blog is, per wiki “a website where entries are made in journal style and displayed in a reverse chronological order.” A blog can be anything the author(s) makes of it from talking about their personal life to writing about international events.

How does a blog differ from a website?

A blog uses “Content Management Software” to organize how the content is presented on the site. The CMS handles all the tasks of setting up the look and where to put information, thus allowing the writer to very simply focus on writing. A traditional website requires great skill to build a good website or a program and some knowledge about how to put it together. But even once you do a traditional website in a program such as Frontpage you lack common features found on CMS such as the search function, archives, comments and RSS feeds.

What is the deal with this whole “RSS” thing?

RSS is better than sliced bread! It stands for Real Simple Syndication but you don’t need to remember that. As we all read more and more websites it has become increasingly time-consuming checking them all out. Rather than spend time going to website after website to see if something new has been added you simply need to “subscribe” to that site’s RSS feed. This can be done in a number of ways.

For those of you using Windows with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer Browser I’ll save you the Macs are better lecture, you’ve probably heard it before. But, IE is a horrible browser and simply can’t handle modern life — you are much better off with Firefox (free download). From Firefox on Windows or Mac or Mac’s Safari browser you can easily subscribe by clicking on the RSS symbol in the address bar. If you use a web-based email program such as MyYahoo from AT&T the home page gives you an option to subscribe there as well.

So what do you get when you subscribe to a website with an RSS feed? In some cases you only get the headlines, in other cases you get a headline and excerpt. The beauty is you can quickly see which of your subscriptions have new content, saving you time by not visiting sites that are not updated.

I have roughly 300 or so websites bookmarked via RSS. Some of these sites only add a post every few weeks, while some have multiple posts each day. With the sites that rarely update it is no big deal having them one the as I know when they’ve added something new — that is the only time I visit.

Another way to think of this is like your investment portfolio, if you have one. You track all your stocks in one place to know what is happening with each one rather than have to visit each and every company’s investor webpage. With RSS you are determining the information you want to track.

So RSS is a blog thing?

Yes and no. Every CMS program that I know of for blogs includes RSS by default. But RSS is not limited to blogs. For example, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch has an RSS page listing all of the various RSS feeds you can get from them. These include as diverse RSS feeds as “Top Business Headlines” to “Yesterday’s Most Read Headlines” to “Garage Sales” in classifieds. The popular Craigslist has RSS feeds for each an every one of their section, quite handy if you want to focus on a few areas. Every major media outlet now has RSS for their content. Ride the bus a lot and what to know if Metro has any service alerts? Simply subscribe to their RSS feed for alerts and you’ll know right away in your web browser if the do. Basically, in today’s world any website that gets new information needs an RSS feed so the world knows about it.

My organization or group doesn’t want to “blog”, we need a real website right?

Wrong! No offense to the web designers out there but many businesses, non-profits and individuals (such as aldermen) can do much better with a CMS-based blog than with a traditional website. Even large corporations are using blogs to reach customers, GM has their FastLane blog which includes information posted from various members of their managment team, including VP Bob Lutz.

Most individuals and organizations that consider a website do so because they have some information to share with others. The type of information you have to share will determine what is best for you or your group. If all you have is very static information that never changes then a traditional website is likely a good choice for you. However, if you constantly have content to add to a site a blog is the way to go.

One example of how to effectively use a blog would be for a neighborhood organization/development corporation. With a blog for the organization you can use static pages for basics such as who the staff is, what the office address and phone number is, and maybe a list of board members and regular committees (each committee or even could have its own page too).

Now say they have 5-6 committees set up and each of those committees is having meetings and such. If the organization is like most it is volunteer based and by the time the committee chair has a chance to write something up for the newsletter it is past the deadline. With a blog each committee chairperson could be given the access to add new content to the organization’s blog. Rather than worry about writing an update with a given number of words for a newsletter they could simply type out a “post” just as they might if sending out an email. If they have documents to reference those can easily be uploaded and linked to. Because we don’t want to exclude those who don’t have internet access, the newsletter editor can now take information from the organization’s site to use in the print edition. This allows the organization to be up to the minute with information as well as control the message about a particular subject.

So I need to install the Content Management Software on my computer?

Nope! That is the beautify of this, it is all web based so no software is added to your computer. You’ll need a more recent browser (Safari, Firefox and possibly IE7) so that 10-year old computer running Windows 98 is probably not going to cut it. You’ll also need DSL or other high-speed internet because dial-up is going to be painfully slow.

A blog must be expensive?

Not at all. You can actually set up a blog completely free. Yes, free! Sources for free blogs include:

• WordPress (this is the free version I what I currently use)
  
• Blogger (from Google, very popular)
• Vox and LiveJournal from Six-Apart

With these free services you may end up with a longer URL such as stlrising.blogspot.com or jenniferflorida.wordpress.com, although your own domain names are possible with these, I think (although don’t ask me how).

Even pictures and videos don’t require any costs at all. You can use free sites like Flickr or YouTube to upload and include images/video in your site. Going back to our local organization example, you can upload pictures from an event to Flickr and then post them on your blog — the only cost is your labor. Suppose you already maintain an email list of members, with this you can send them a link to the post that includes the pictures rather than possibly clog their email account.

If you want to build more sophisticated sites you’ll want to step up to a hosted form of CMS. You can work through someone locally that can host the site for you as well as do the basic setup or you can buy your own hosting space and do it yourself. In other examples you might get your own hosting account but use a professional to help with the setup. If you are able to use an FTP site and other behind the scenes type stuff for a webpage you can probably handle this yourself.

Who Hosts UrbanReviewSTL?

I use Dreamhost for my websites and email hosting, although many such firms exist. At $120/yr (or $96/yr if you pay for two years at a time) you’ll likely have more bandwidth and storage space than you’ll ever need. They include a “one-click” install for a WordPress blog and very complete instructions in case you get lost. They also include one free domain name when you sign up.

For the purposes of full disclosure, I get a referral fee for everyone that signs up with them that references me. Of course, you can sign-up with them without doing so (or use someone else). My main concern is getting more organizations and elected officials online so that we can effectively communicate relevant information. If you are considering such a hosting account, I can actually save you $25. Use the promotional code 314urbanreview and they’ll take $25 off your initial registration, regardless of the plan you pick. I’ll still get a small fee while you can get your blog set up for less than $100.

If a 501(c)3 non-profit group out there wants to do this but truly can’t afford the $120 fee shoot me an email (steve at urbanreviewstl dot com) and I can work with you to get the out of pocket expense down to nearly nothing for the first year, helping you get started. I’ll want to verify you’ve got a staff person or volunteer who is capable of doing the set-up and adding content. If I really like your group I may volunteer to do the setup for you as long as I know it will get used on a regular basis. Again, the idea is to get as many organizations out there as possible posting as much information as possible.

Google Will Find my Traditional Website, Right?

Oh, sorry, probably not. Well, that is not entirely true. Your website will end up on page 4 of someone’s Google search while my post about your organization will end up on page 1. Those RSS feeds we discussed earlier along with some things called “pings” help Google, Yahoo and others know you exist and know what you are writing about.

Here is a good local example. If you Google for Save Cleveland High you’ll get saveclevelandhigh.org as the top response — the search engines have the website name & URL down. However, if you Google for Save Cleveland School you’ll find on page one a post by the Arch City Chronicle, one from this site and one from Toby Weiss’ B.E.L.T blog. I got to page 8 of the google search and still hadn’t found a direct link to the actual main site – not good. That means, depending upon the search someone performs, they might read someone else’s site before getting to your site with your message. If saveclevelandhigh.org had utilized blog software to build their site or at least the “news” section (you can mix traditional methods with CMS) they’d have RSS and pings on each news item. This alone would have likely guaranteed them page one ranking on Google regardless of the variations on search terms used. For the record, the Save Cleveland High website is an exceptionally clean and attractive design.

How is this Whole Communication Thing Important?

We have lots of great people, great organizations and great events happening in the St. Louis region. Too often these exist in a vacuum — nobody else knows what you’ve got going on. Or you are planning a big project and you want to communicate lots of details that are hard to convey in a public meeting without either A) getting it wrong or having it misunderstood or B) boring everyone to death. With your own site you’ll increase your chances a blogger or local news outlet will notice your event/project/organization and give you additional coverage. If you have images to share it is easily done. If you have files such as PDF or Word documents these can easily be added to a hosted blog so that everyone can reference the same documents, even if your office is closed. And finally in an organization there are simply not enough hours in the day to answer all the phone calls or return all the emails — with an effective website (aka blog) you can easily share information in a consistent manner and have it reach the widest audience possible. Many of those repetitive questions that keep you from getting more done are perect areas to address on a website.
The more others know about your organization, your programs, and your events the more likely they are to contribute their time and/or money. Or perhaps the more likely they are to finally decide to take the time to attend an event or send you an email with some feedback. As a community we can benefit from an increased level of communication.

Do you have any other Real World Examples where a Blog Might be Effective?

Oh boy, do I.

• Each of the Democratic ward committees in the city (all 28) could have their own blog. The central committee could buy one hosting account for $120/year (even less if they use the promo code above) and host all 28 sites. The central committee site could have basic information and a link to all 28 sites. They could take it a step further and have a syndicated site where they bring in the most recent 5-10 posts from the 28 wards.
• Every elected official in the entire St. Louis region should have a blog. Period. Not only are they an effective campaign tool but they are a great way to reaching many people in a fair and consistent manner.
• Some of the really small municipalities in the region that do not have websites currently due to limited budgets could put together an effective website using the power of content managment software. This would be a highly cost-effective way of providing basic information on elected officials, various boards, notices of up coming events (including official events such as council meetings) and so forth.
• Neighborhood, school, church and other civic organizations can all have an affordable and effective presense on the web.
• Special causes can be more effective with a blog. One recent local example was Praxair Watch which sprung up quickly after the explosion on the edge of Lafayette Square. The site hasn’t been updated since June but in the midst of the controversy it was updated often and a great means of spreading the word. Such a site also kept the official neighborhood organization out of the middle of things.
• Organizations such as the Landmarks Association,
• Even major groups like the RCGA (St. Louis Regional Chamber & Growth Association) lack RSS feeds for their news items, reducing the ability of a blogger like me or, far more importantly, an out-of-state CEO, to easily track progress in St. Louis. Ditto for the Downtown St. Louis Partnership.

OK, any Examples of How this CMS is used in Places Besides Personal Blogs?

An example of a complex website built using Content Management Software (CMS) is the YMCA of Greater St. Louis. The main site has an RSS feed for overall YMCA stuff but suppose I want to track what is going on at say the Carondelet branch only? Yes, they have an RSS feed that goes out for each and every branch so that I can chose to obtain information as specific or as general as I want. This level of website development requires a professional and it does not come free. However, it does allow the average non-computer geek at each branch to “post” new information to their site simply by logging into the web-based system and fill out information in a few fields — the CMS software handles the rest. The sites stay current because the staff does not have to be website geniuses to update them! As a communication tool, the CMS-based website is considerably better than a more traditional website that requires expensive website design software and a Ph.D. in computer science to post a simple announcement.

St. Louis Magazine’s “50 Power Players” Online

A couple of weeks ago I did a post about St. Louis Magazine’s ’50 Most Powerful in 2006′ list in their December 2006 issue, with me rounding out the list at #50. If you’ve still not picked up a copy you can conveniently read the entire list online, just click here. However, if you want to see the nice pic of me on my scooter on a closed Washington Ave (thank you McGowan’s & St. Louis Cardinals) you will need to purchase the print edition.  From the intro to the piece:

“You think it’s easy to rank this city’s heavy hitters? Try it. Everyone knew who carried the biggest stick back during the reign of Civic Progress, but in these days of fragmented power, it’s a bit harder to separate influence peddlers from petty insiders”

Some of us were also asked to name five people we thought were powerful and influential in St. Louis. See who Jeff Smith, Joe Edwards, The Gills, Peter Raven, myself and others listed as powerful in St. Louis, here.

So, check out the full list and use the comments section below to add people that you think are missing but should be included, perhaps to name those that you don’t think belong on the list or even suggest a different order.

Urban Review Has Moved

After two years with the STLSyndicate I decided it was time to branch out on my own, in the blogoshere that means your own server. So if you are reading this, you are on the new site of Urban Review. All the old posts have been moved so regular readers will find things pretty much as they have been. For new readers, welcome.

Here is a list of some of the changes form the old system:

• Currently I don’t have the popular “most recent comments” section on the right but I have RSS available for comments. We will be adding the “most recent comments” in the near future.
• Until I can get some spam blocking measures in place, the first comment per IP address will need to be approved, after which future comments will appear automatically. I will approve all except spam so continue to speak your mind including telling me I am way off base if that is what you think.
• The template we are using has a quite lovely standard picture. Don’t get to used to it as it will be going away in the coming weeks.
• The graphics are a little nicer than the old but this may change as we tweak the aesthetic during 2007.
• I’ve dropped the “subscribe” email address — it was primarily another way for spammers to hit me. I will still offer the option of receiving an email as I do new posts — just send me an email to steveATurbanreviewstlDOTcom with a note to be informed of new posts. I’ll call this notification so as not to be confused with RSS subscriptions.

What is in store for the future:

• Bulleted & numbered lists like this are so much easier to do in WordPress than in Moveable Type. This will hopefully allow me to improve the visual appearance of posts as well as improve the readability.
• Banner advertising is gone, but not for long. Next month we willl be setting up an ad server and I will be selling advertising on this site to help cover the enormous amount of time I spend researching & writing.
• Links will be considerably easier to organize and update so I will begin working on that soon. They may go from being on the right to a links page.
• Categories are the same as they were before but look for these to get edited, revised and updated. I never had a plan for categories when I started so this will now get addressed and cleaned up.
• Additional pages will be added to communicate my big picture view of the region and specific issues such as transportation and housing. These will serve as position papers without the usual academic stuffiness associated with that sorta writing.
• I have a few other ideas I am tossing around. This software platform will give me the flexibility to grown, expand and change easily as issues warrant as much. Anything you’d like to see?
• I will be able to handle some changes to the site myself but some of the more complicated matters will be handled by a programmer and a graphic designer. That explains the “we” in places above — they are far more talented than I am when it comes to this HTML and CSS stuff.

I want to thank STLSyndicate organizer & host Brian Marston for all his help over the last two years. It has been as part of the Syndicate that Urban Review has gone from obscurity to recognition. Best wishes to him and all the associated blogs.
UPDATES

• 11/23/06 10am – “Recent Comments” now added to right sidebar.
• 11/23/06 10:30am – Comment verification added so that comments don’t have to be approved.
• 11/23/06 8pm – A series of 160+ quotes added to main page as “Food for Thought.” See upper right.
• 12/03/06 9pm – “Preview” feature added to comments, generic verification replaced cool word verification.

Urban Review Turns Two Today!

Two years ago today I started blogging here at Urban Review and it has been a terrific ride so far. I started the blog as my father returned home after spending several weeks in the hospital after a heart attack. That entire month I could not focus on anything, until I began writing. Urban Review has given me new a focus and purpose. I had no idea, at the beginning, how life changing this blog would be for me.

I started with my own hosting that Halloween two years ago and on November 19, 2004 joined the STLSyndicate collection of St. Louis made blogs. I had 13 visits on that day! In December 2004, the first full month on the Syndicate, I had 1,086 unique visitors (distinct IP addresses), 3,649 visits and 11,179 page views. I was thrilled. After today the unique visitors for this month will exceed 20,000, visits have already topped 50,000 and page views will be over 120,000. If only St. Louis’ population could grow at such a rate.

In this last two years I’ve done over 900 posts and you’ve given feedback to the tune of 6,000+ comments!!! I’ve learned so much more about St. Louis and its people in the last two years than in the prior 14 living here. In researching and writing these hundreds of posts I have gained greater knowledge about so many areas of planning and design. Your comments have also helped build my base of understanding.

I’m quite happy to report that everyone says, “I don’t agree with you 100% of the time.” Some never agree and some may get to the high 90s but that is what makes this great — the ability to discuss issues and disagree. This means we are all thinking as individuals. Well, I take that back, I think some are still in the group mindset (aka ‘The Establishment’) but their numbers are dwindling and our numbers are rising.

The discussion of urbanism has really taken off in St. Louis and I’ll a part of the credit. Kudos also go out to other sites such as the Urban St. Louis forums, The Ecology of Absence and most recently Steve Wilke-Shapiro’s 15thWardSTL. Add in a healthy dose of political coverage from Antonio French at PubDef and you can see why the firm Civic Strategies in Atlanta wrote:

What does it say about St. Louis that it is nurturing the best urblogs in the country? Perhaps simply that somebody cares in River City.

We do care. We care enough to shape the city the way we want it to be, not the way the suburban developers and their bought politicians have been doing for decades. My readership spans all age groups, all races, economic classes and municipal boundaries. Even those that disagree with me on nearly every subject are here because the issues raised are important for a society to air in public. For too long many topics simply were left untouched by the public.

In the last two years I’ve managed to make a name for myself, although that was never the purpose. The purpose, however, has shifted. I do have access to people and places that even a year ago I did not. I’m not using my access like some do: posing for photos with big wigs, attending fancy parties with free food & drink or free tickets to a Cardinals game. No, I’m using this access to obtain documents to further the urbanist cause, to bend ears about bike racks, sidewalks, the need for new zoning, and to push & prod those in seats of power off the fence. The joy in seeing constructive change is all the personal gain I need. So while self-proclaimed “progressive aldermen” wine and dine at Anheuser-Busch sponsored parties I hope that together the rest of us can actually reclaim the city — taking back the city one public right-of-way at a time.

The next two years should interesting. I will be continuing to work on a Masters in Urban Planning and Real Estate Development at Saint Louis University. With this education will bring increased knowledge and even more ability to give critical analysis of issues. Papers and projects throughout will focus on St. Louis and I will be publishing them here. Despite my time spent in grad school I am beginning to layout a road map for the year ago. Like a magazine or newspaper would do, I am thinking about dates and events for the coming year and researching information for future posts. In November I will be organizing those that have volunteers to be “Ward Advisors” so that we can take a closer look at issues in the city.

A number of people have said I have simply been scratching the surface. This is true. In many cases I’ve been simply a small pest — a gadfly. I will continue scratching around on many different topics but I also hope to dig a little deeper into a few. This will likely come as part of my grad school research. But I also hope to root out some of the more problematic in local government. Recently we’ve seen resignations of St. Peters’ mayor and Berkeley’s city manager, both over issues of corruption. In the case of the mayor of St. Peters, he claims he was seeking a “contribution” from a city contractor. Thankfully, this contractor went to the FBI who helped document the request for money in exchange for not vetoing legislation to hire the firm. Sadly, many contractors in St. Louis seem willing to give large sums of money to our local officials. You can call me a conspiracy theorist but I can’t help but think some of these deals are just not on the up and up. Should the evidence ever come my way, I will not hesitate for a second to expose anyone in office or any local company of such wrong doing. I get whispers of stuff here and there but nothing concrete that I can prove. OK, enough politics.

In February I turn 40. Ugh. What happened to that idealistic 23 year-old that moved to St. Louis in 1990? Time goes by so quickly. A couple of weeks ago I attended the visitation for a former employer who died at age 50 of cancer. He went from diagnosis to death in three months. We will all die at some point but we just don’t know when. I have a feeling my 40s will be great, I will have a new degree and new career choices, but I’m not willing to wait until my mid 50s to have more a more urban St. Louis. I want it now. For example, I will continue to push for modern streetcars which are roughly half the cost of light rail. Local funding of such a system would eliminate costly federal requirements, shaving years off the project completion date. Getting new leadership in place and changing our zoning will all be efforts toward creating an urban city again. Ending the reign of suburban sprawl entering the city limits from the likes of Desco and Pyramid will be paramount to our city’s future.

I will continue on with Urban Review as I have the last two years. Bringing you issues as I see them and then allowing you to agree or disagree. I greatly appreciate your readership and feedback. I truly believe that together we are having a positive affect on the future of St. Louis. To those that don’t want to change I have just one word for you, Boo!

A ‘Sordid’ Party Planned at City Hall on Two-Year Anniversary of Urban Review

It seems fitting the 2-year anniversary of my blog falls on Halloween as some, especially those in elected office, find my frankness a bit on the scary side. What is frightening to me is that some of these folks are in office at all. Seriously, I’ve enjoyed the last two years commenting on planning & politics in the city and region.

So I thought to myself, why not have a party to celebrate? But this year Halloween falls on a Tuesday and I’ve got class that night anyway. Why not have a party on the Saturday night before Halloween. And since I write so much about the ‘sordid lives’ of folks at city hall that seems like the perfect place to hold such a party. Well, being the gracious person I am I thought why not let others in on this so when Bill Donius, President of Pulaski Bank, wanted to use city hall for his annual costume party I said why not.

Not buying it? OK, fine. I had no real plans to celebrate but it seemed like a good way to lead you into an announcement about the formerly private party at Donius’ Ladue home going public for charity: A Sordid Halloween Party.

We are hosting this big bash to provide St. Louis with a provocative and enjoyable evening of entertainment, good company, and the opportunity to raise funds for worthwhile charitable organizations. The beneficiaries of this year’s event will include Food Outreach and Doorways. Food Outreach provides food to patients living with AIDS and cancer, serving over 1300 clients per week. Doorways provides housing to those who are critically ill and their children.

Tickets are $50 per person or $150 for the VIP section (prices go up after today). And what do you get for that extra hundred bucks? You get to meet two stars from the acclaimed plays Sordid Lives and Southern Baptist Sissies: Delta Burke and Leslie Jordan!!! While I have not seen the plays I have seen the movie Sordid Lives on more than one occassion. As someone from the south, I can tell you they nailed the southern personalities quite well. But, back to the party.

Past parties, I’m told, have been an interesting cross section of St. Louis (straight & gay, monied to middle of the road, with a good dose of racial diversity), this year should be no exception. Hurry and buy your tickets online because prices go up after today. A portion of each ticket is tax deductible and the event is for a good cause. A costume is required for entry.

I’ll talk more about the two year anniversary of Urban Review later in the month.