I’ve been thinking a lot lately about some of the applications of a blog…moreover, why have a blog and what are the different ways you can use them? I’ve come to some early conclusions. What do you think?

There seems to be several applications for blogs: get information out to the public (in a pr kind of way), be a resource in your niche, make plans for a project, inform friends and family of what’s going on in your life, or just a toy for random expressions.

A blog provides some interaction, though I don’t believe it’s the best for real threaded discussions. It allows interaction, but I don’t think it heavily promotes it.

The thing that I see a blog so very useful for is from a technology point of view. There is no quicker way to get a website up and running than with a blog. You can have one up and ready in 3 steps, all for free through Blogger.com. In the past, one would need to have a program like Dreamweaver or FrontPage and pay for hosting. With a blog, you can be online immediately for free. There are other good blog software companies out there, but they require, in some form, some knowledge of html, hosting, etc. Blogger eliminated all of that (for the most part…and you get what you pay for).

The trouble is that a blog has it’s own characteristics that are different from “normal” websites. However, a blogger who understands the technology can tweak a blog to make it work more like a “normal” website.

For instance, I’m working on a blog that will be for an upcoming conference I’m planning. I’ll release the URL later, but we’re going to try and use it to answer all the questions, handle registration (needed separate hosting), and post conference details. The folks planning the IE-21st Century conference are doing a similar thing.

An idea I’ve had for a while is to use blog technology to create a church website. Pastor David Hand (aka: Jollyblogger) is doing just that. I’m anxious to see how it continues. He has already addressed some issues and learning from others.

Blogs allow for quick and easy updates…fresh content.

So what is a blog then? Is it a great technology that fits many different applications? Is it a communications tool that is used for all sorts of different things and the reason it’s easy is because of the technology? Once again we see how communications and technologists must work hand-in-hand.

I have other thoughts on this but I’ll have to share them later. In the meantime, if you have a website or want to have one, why not consider a blog to get started? Leave a comment if you are or are thinking about it.