To B(log) Or Not To B(log), That Is The Question - Part 1

I have always wanted to set up a web site or blog to promote dancing in Malaysia, seeing that dancesport may one day become a medal event at the Olympic Games. Prior to this site being launched 2 months ago, I believe there is no web site or blog dedicated to dancing whereby viewers can post comments or have a forum to discuss issues of common interest. Many dance schools in Malaysia have their own web sites to advertise their services but most do not publish articles or have a forum.

Unless you are internet savvy and know how to set up a web site all by yourself, you will most likely have to engage the services of a professional web designer. You will also need to register a domain name. As most of the good dotcom domain names have been taken up, you will most probably have to buy one that you fancy.In addition you will have to pay for the hosting service. Then there is the yearly renewal fee for your domain name. All these expenses can set you back a tidy sum.

Being an internet newbie, the thought of learning how to build a website from scratch, registering a domain name and then looking for a host service provider all by myself sort of petrified me. Fortunately I have a relative, Fai who is a computer techie. When I told him I wanted to set up a web site or blog, he told me all about Blogger, which is owned by Google. "How much will it cost me to set up the blog?" I interjected. "It's free!" was his curt reply. "Is it difficult to set up a blog?" I queried. "It's as easy as abc, as simple as 123" he waxed lyrical. His repartee reminded me of the lyrics of the song ABC by the Jackson 5. Fai then went on to tell me animatedly that with Blogger you can create a blog in 3 easy steps in less than 5 minutes. My interest was piqued.

That Saturday I went over to Fai's house and we sat down to set up my blog. I logged on to blogger.com. A message read - "Create a blog in 3 easy steps." The first step was to create an account. That was easy. The second step was to choose a name for my blog. As spaces, periods and underscores are not allowed in the domain name, I settled for and christened my blog, http://www.dancesportmalaysia.blogspot.com/. The third step was to choose a template. This was the easiest (or toughest, depending on your viewpoint) part as there were so many beautiful templates to choose from. After mulling over the choices available, I picked a template with a green colour theme and clicked the enter arrow.

Lo and behold! My blog was up and running. I edited my profile, wrote a little about myself, and published a post about the So You Think You Can Dance competition which was then being aired over TV8 every Thursday. I viewed my blog again. Voila! All that I had posted were shown on the site. I was smug and as pleased as Punch. Setting up a blog and blogging isn't so difficult after all, I told Fai. He smiled and nodded in agreement.

I told Fai that I had seen advertisements with the words "Ads By Google" in many web sites and blogs and was curious to know what they were all about. Fai told me that these are contextual advertisements that are relevant to the contents of the web pages.He further informed that the site owner or AdSense publisher as they are called will be paid a certain amount of money each time someone clicks and sees the advertisement. I was as curious as I was sceptical. "Who would want to advertise in a new blog like mine" I muttered to myself. Anyway since there were no joining fees involved, I signed up as a AdSense publisher with google.com/adsense and put up a small rectangle ad unit in my web page. We were done for the day and I then took Fai out for a nice dinner as a token of appreciation.

To be continued next week .....


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> To B(log) Or Not To B(log), That Is The Question - Part 2