Other Blogs of Interest

Some of you may know a lot of blogs and others might be wondering just what it all means. Put simply, blog is shorthand for web log or in other words, a kind of online diary. Blogging is an incredibly versatile way of participating in and using the internet as an active communication medium.

Blogs are set up for all sorts of reasons - this one for the NSW Grassland Society is used as to make news announcements and as a place where we can put snippets of information that might be of interest. Anyone can join the "blogosphere" by either writing, reading, subscribing to and/or commenting on a blog. If you ignore this new phenomenon of blogging, you are missing out on a huge chunk of the internet so let's have a look at the basics:

Searching the Blogosphere
There are literally millions of blogs out there so how do you find something of interest ? Here are some suggestions:

• Google Blog Search - basic search using the Google system
• Technorati - up to date monitoring of popular topics with advanced searching
• del.icio.us - strange name but building a community using tags & bookmarks

Subscribing to a Blog
Once you have found a blog that you would like to keep reading, you can usually subscribe to it so you are automatically notified of any updates. This can be done in a number of ways - posts sent to your email program, update notifications or by using a specialised newsreader program or website. Here are a few that we use ourselves (there are many more out there): Feedburner, Technorati, and Bloglines (all free to register).

Becoming a Blogger
Anyone can start their own blog - there are a range of options but for those on a tight budget, we recommend Blogger or Wordpress (both are completely free of charge). Sign up and in a few minutes you can start writing. Alternatively, you may like to comment on blogs written by other people - look for a comments section at the bottom of each article (or post). Make your thoughts known to the world. By the way, the Grassland Society of NSW welcomes comments so feel free to add your feedback.

Agricultural Blogs
Just to get you started, here are a few different types of blogs that that might be of interest to those in the agricultural industries.

• Rational Agriculture - UK based blog about science in agriculture
• Agriculture Resources - collection of links in blog format
• Environmental News Network - Food & Agriculture headlines
• Life on the Pea Harvest - a quirky diary of a Birds Eye agricultural manager describing this years pea crop (in England)
• Diary of a Carbon Farmer - written by a consultant/farmer at Gulgong, NSW
• LandHear - blog about sustainable land management in Australia
• Pasture Perfect Produce - blog about an organic farm producing pork in NSW

These are not in any particular order - just a sampling of the different types of blogs that are out there (some obviously are more relevant or reliable than others). Of course, you will find blogs on any subject you would like to think of so get searching and link up with those of similar interests. Or you may be inspired to set up your own.

Hope this has been of some interest and explains why the Grassland Society of NSW maintains a blog in conjunction with its website. Stay tuned for a post about this year's conference - not quite as good as being there yourself but definitely the next best thing.

Cheers for now from the Web Team.