Teach Yourself Blogging (Teach Yourself General) |
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Author:
Nat McBride,
Jamie Cason
By Teach Yourself
Average Customer Rating:  
List Price: £9.99
Our Price: £1.49
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Binding: Paperback
EAN: 9780340926741
ISBN: 0340926740
Label: Teach Yourself
Manufacturer: Teach Yourself
Number Of Pages: 256
Publication Date: 2006-05-26
Publisher: Teach Yourself
Studio: Teach Yourself |
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Learn a lot yourself prior to trusting this book to instruct you, 2006-08-10
Comment: Myself being a veteran bloggers, I found this book to be of a little use; however it is worth stating that I am nothing like the target audience for this book. Given whom the target audience of this book is however I feel it necessary to point out a few of the areas in which the book fails to cater to the wannabe bloggers that the book tries to attract.
A large failing is that the subject matter of the book seams to continually cross the fine line (or large gulf depending on your frame of reference) that exists between "Blogging" as the title suggest it would cover and "Weblogging" which it covers to the detriment of blogging. Given the historical context in which the two activities arose, with blogging starting in the early 1980s and weblogging starting in the mid 1990s it is easy to see why the two have followed similar yet distinct paths which can still be seen in the effect they have behind the style and presentation of the two formats upon the web.
Less than three months since this book was first published it is clear to see that the passage of time has not been kind to it. This is most evident in how it tries to define a "Blog" with a definition that only two years ago would pass for a definition of a "weblog" but fails to even meet that demand today due to failing to take account of recent developments in blogging, weblogging and even basic website developments. Another example of this is in encouraging the readers to use features or techniques that whist popular in the past have become less so and some that are now that's to developments are considered to be harmful to user interaction. An example of an outdated practise been described as if it were best practise is telling users to use CAPTCHAs to stop spam without considering the human interaction issues (and the effect of laws such as the DDA in the UK) and also without giving any consideration to other methods of spam prevention such as Akismet or Spam Karma
On the back of the book (and on the Amazon website) it states "Unlike most lower priced blogging books, "Teach Yourself Blogging" does not focus wholly on specific blogging services." whilst this is true, it does not wholly focus on a specific blogging service it does focus extremely heavily on just two blogging services, perhaps useful if you only ever intend to use the services of Google or Six Apart but to everyone else a little misleading.
In conclusion I would be weary of allowing any wannabe bloggers to utilise this book without a good dose of salt and also being aware of some current websites that cover the issue of blogging within a current context.
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