Say "Hi!" to the Neighbors
In Blogging 101 workshop, I had a Follow Blogs assignment: “follow five new topics in the WordPress Reader and five new blogs”.
This actually took some time browsing and searching topics and blogs in the Reader, but I found the Recommended Blogs section helpful in narrowing down the list of possibilities to try. I was fun looking at all the blogs available, but it took a while to identify five to try. It might be easier to selectively try these gradually one at a time until I find those I want to really keep.
I had trouble trying to work with the Tags section to select topics to follow. As mentioned on some of the WordPress posts about this assignment, it was recommended to avoid broad categories like music, travel, recipes, etc. However, I wasn’t sure what specific tags to try and sometimes they didn’t match anything.
So at this point, I have the following tags selected: Blogging, Books, Culture, Dallas Stars, and Music. But this selects may too much so I’m inclined not to use this feature until I have a better idea of how to make them more narrower and meaningful.
Right now, it’s not that easy to follow blogs and topics in the WordPress Reader, and I’m thinking that perhaps it would be a better more manageable experience to use my Reeder 2 apps on macOS and iOS to read blogs that I want to follow.
Selections:
I selected the following blogs to follow, with a brief commentary about why they were chosen.
1. BookPeople’s Blog: http://bookpeopleblog.wordpress.com
This is a blog from Austin’s largest independent bookstore. Since it’s local, I thought it might be a good one to follow to get ideas for books to read and see what’s happening at the store.
2. Writing Through the Fog: http://writingthroughthefog.com
This blog by Cheri Lucas Rowlands looked interesting because of its unique perspective and diverse subjects.
3. Looking at the West: http://lookingatthewest.com
I found this under the Nature section, but it also looks like a great photography blog about nature in the west. I love this part of the country because it is so scenic and unique, and always makes me feel refreshed and inspired.
4. ProHockeyTalk: http://prohockeytalk.nbcsports.com
Since the National Hockey League (NHL) professional ice hockey season is about to begin in the US and Canada, this NBC Sports blog might be a good one to follow, especially related to my favorite team, Dallas Stars.
I have season tickets for the Texas Stars here in the Austin area, which their primary development affiliate in the American Hockey League (AHL) and many of those players are under contract and/or have moved up with Dallas after watching them over the past five years.
5. Catching Days: https://wordpress.com/read/blog/id/4727656
This looks like a blog that just might be fun to read on the topic of How We Spend Our Days. It appears to be a series from a variety of different writers so it might offer another perspective for me to enjoy. At least it’s worth a try, and I will see if I like it. If not, I can always go search another blog to follow instead. However, it’s nice to be able to explore areas outside my normal boundaries.
Future choices:
There were also other interesting candidates related to books and nature, which I have listed below. I might want to add them later, or this might be helpful for my readers. But I thought I would just try the five chosen for this assignment first.
6. Write Meg!: http://writemeg.com
Her blog seemed appealing since it covers topics that I might like such as books, music, etc.
7. Eleventh Stack: http://eleventhstack.wordpress.com
This looked liked a possibility too since it’s blog about books, movies, and music that is maintained by library works at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh.
8. Jim Caffrey Photo Blog: http://jimages.wordpress.com
I liked this because it focused on nature photography, and this might something I might want to follow as I add other blogs.
9. Photo Nature Blog: http://photonatureblog.com
This was another one that looked interesting with nature and outdoor photography by Jeffrey Foltice, who lives in Western Michigan. Maybe this is something to consider in the future.