A huge trail of controversies and myths still continue to exist within the blogosphere. This article was written to dispel some of the blog myths outlined below.

Any ordinary Joe can start a blog. Not quite sure about that! Do you enjoy writing? Do you have specialized knowledge you want to share? Are you passionate about a certain topic? If you answered No to any or all of these questions, think again.

Anyone can set up a blog. Some blogs are much easier to set up and use than others depending on your blog host (e.g., blogger, iblogs, typepad, tblog, etc.). Some blog hosts take you through a couple simple set-up steps and you’re off writing your first post but there are others that get far more technical than the average user may be ready for.

Blogging is grade-school. When in comes to blogging, it’s the actual writing that’s the toughest nut to crack. The more engaged and knowledgeable you are with your subject, the easier and more interesting your writing will be.

Most blogs are political. Nope, only some. Many blogs focus on political topics but most blogs are just bloggers discussing their lives, loves and travels. A list of the 50 most visited blogs at BlogHub (http://www.bloghub.com/top50blogs.htm) shows very few political blogs.

Blogs are in competition with the main-stream media. This is true in a few cases (not as many cases as bloggers would have you think). Just recently, there have been some very popular and influential social and politically-oriented blogs that have caused main-stream media outlets to back-track and change their coverage of important events.

Bloggers are all just making criticisms and have no new information to add. This may be true in some cases. But today, corporations, media outlets, public personalities, politicians and experts in almost every field have now joined the ranks of blog producers. All this expertise adds up new information to the blogosphere every now and then.

Blogs don’t always tell the truth. That’s a bit of an overstatement. You may read bad information and even intentional untruths in blogs but, for the most part, bloggers who state facts are stating what they honestly believe to be fact. It is always up to the reader to verify that any information they receive is accurate information.