What is a “Blog”?
Like most interesting English words, the definition of “blog” has changed over time and will likely continue to do so. Here’s my personal definition:
Blog – (Orig. “weblog.”) (1) A regularly updated online journal with links to interesting or noteworthy information found in the World Wide Web; (2) an online journal or forum, usually updated frequently, containing personal or mundane information; (3) An online journal or diary powered by a publishing tool that requires little technical skill to operate, usually of a personal nature and updated frequently — often containing links to other content available online; (4) An online publishing platform with content that is frequently updated; (5) An online journal often with a single author or unified editorial voice; (6) An emerging 21st century communication medium characterized by personal information sharing amongst family, friends, or peer groups.
How a Blog Works
Blog can be a noun: Did you go to Harriett’s blog?
Blog can be a verb: I blogged back what I thought of her statement.
A blog is a web-publishing tool that makes it easy for anyone to publish text, photos and, even, video on the Internet. A blog is easy to use (see links below) and just about anyone who can use a web browser (i.e. Internet Explorer, Safari, Mozilla Firefox) can set-up a blog and start publishing in minutes — no fancy technical skills required.
Most blogging tools let a blogger organize “posts” (or “articles”) by categories. For example, my tip on “What is a Blog?” is in the “Computer Skills” category — a subcategory of “Work, Travel & Tech.” In the right column of this page you’ll see all of the larger categories of snoety.com — click one and you’ll find articles relevant to that topic.
Most blogs also allow site visitors (like you) to enter comments on individual posts, which can then be added to the site. This allows you to provide feedback to the author as well as enter into a dialogue with other readers. (You’ll find a comment box at the end of my tip — and after all posts on snoety — that allows you to join in the conversation.)
Many blogs, snoety included, review the comments that users post before publishing them. This “filtering” (also called comment moderation) helps to prevent troublesome or annoying comments (bad language, pornographic come-ons, “potency” ads, etc.) from cluttering up the site. Because of this filtering, it may sometimes take a few hours or even a few days for your comments to appear, depending upon the volume of comments the site owner needs to review.
Blogging Tools
Blogger.com – perhaps the simplest, most straightforward publishing tool out there. No technical knowledge required. Just sign-up and you can be blogging in minutes. (free)
WordPress.org – For the geekier blogger (like me), WordPress is highly customizable but requires that you have access to a web server and some familiarity with the underlying technology. (free)
WordPress.com – WordPress.com is the “instant” version of WordPress. It works much like Blogger.com and allows you to quickly set-up a blog without diving into all technical details. (free)
A History of “Blog”
The term “weblog” was coined in December of 1997 when Jorn Barger launched robotwisdom.com. Every day he posted an eclectic list of links to sites on the web that he found interesting, newsworthy or just plain funny.
In 1999 Peter Merholz shortened “weblog” to “blog” with the following post: “For What It’s Worth I’ve decided to pronounce the word ‘weblog’ as wee’- blog. Or ‘blog’ for short.” The short name stuck.
However, the concept of a blog, as a place to post frequently updated links to other content, actually goes back to the origins of the World Wide Web. In fact, the first web site (http://info.cern.ch/), built by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN was the also the first weblog (in content if not in name). This web page, updated monthly (I think), offered news about the development of that thing we now know as the web and offered links not just to “interesting” content but to any content accessible via a brand new invention called the web browser.
Other forerunners of the modern blog include NCSA’s original “What’s New” page (June, 1993) followed by Netscape’s “What’s New” page later that same year — all rightfully called weblogs in that they provided frequently updated lists of links, with little commentary, to other sites of interest.
Eventually, individuals started creating their own blogs. Many continued to be little more than link collections, but others became more editorial and personal. People started using this newfound publishing platform to create online journals or diaries and chronicled their day-to-day activities and interests. Some blogged (our noun has become a verb) on a specific topic or passion — ranging from astronomy to detailed descriptions of the comings and goings of an upstairs neighbor to a list of all the food they ate each day. Others just posted anything that popped into their head.
There was a time when a person who enjoyed reading blogs could read all of them on a daily basis. (The oft-used blog convention of having links in the left hand column comes from Cameron Barrett’s camworld.com who used that area to link to all the other blogs he was aware of.) This was about to change. In July of 1999 Pitas.com launched the first blog publishing tool for the non-geek. A month later bloggers Meg Hourihan and Evan Williams launched blogger.com and it was a hit. Blogging went mainstream and the number of blogs and the diversity of subjects covered grew exponentially.
Today blogs are an online phenomenon that spans from its weblog roots (simple links to interesting content and online diaries) to an alternative to mainstream journalism to a platform for political communication. (Since 2000 all of the major political campaigns have maintained blogs.) No one knows for sure, but the number of blogs in the blogosphere is currently estimated to be over 70 million (technorati) with “about 120,000 new weblogs being created worldwide each day” or “1.4 blogs created every second.
