What's Blog?

A blog (a portmanteau of the term web log) is a discussion or informational site published on the World Wide Web and consisting of discrete entries ("posts") typically displayed in reverse chronological order (the most recent post appears first). Until 2009 blogs were usually the work of a single individual, occasionally of a small group, and often were themed on a single subject. More recently "multi-author blogs" (MABs) have developed, with posts written by large numbers of authors and professionally edited. MABs from newspapers, other media outlets, universities, think tanks, interest groups and similar institutions account for an increasing quantity of blog traffic. The rise of Twitter and other "microblogging" systems helps integrate MABs and single-author blogs into societal newstreams. Blog can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

The emergence and growth of blogs in the late 1990s coincided with the advent of web publishing tools that facilitated the posting of content by non-technical users. (Previously, a knowledge of such technologies as HTML and FTP had been required to publish content on the Web.)

A majority are interactive, allowing visitors to leave comments and even message each other via GUI widgets on the blogs, and it is this interactivity that distinguishes them from other static websites. In that sense, blogging can be seen as a form of social networking. Indeed, bloggers do not only produce content to post on their blogs, but also build social relations with their readers and other bloggers.There are high-readership blogs which do not allow comments, such as Daring Fireball.

Many blogs provide commentary on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries; others function more as online brand advertising of a particular individual or company. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, Web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability of readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important contribution to the popularity of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (art blogs), photographs (photoblogs), videos (video blogs or "vlogs"), music (MP3 blogs), and audio (podcasts). Microblogging is another type of blogging, featuring very short posts. In education, blogs can be used as instructional resources. These blogs are referred to as edublogs.

As of 16 February 2011, there were over 156 million public blogs in existence. On October 13, 2012, there were around 77 million Tumblr and 56.6 million WordPress blogs in existence worldwide. According to critics and other bloggers, Blogger is the most popular blogging service used today.

Overview

Online diaries have existed since at least 1994. As a community formed, these publications came to be almost exclusively known as online journals. Today they are almost exclusively called blogs, though some differentiate by calling them personal blogs. The running updates of online diarists combined with links inspired the term 'web log' which was eventually contracted to form the word 'blog'.

In online diaries, people write about their day-to-day experiences, social commentary, complaints, poems, prose, illicit thoughts and any content that might be found in a traditional paper diary or journal. They often allow readers to contribute through comments or community posting.

Early history

The first web page in an online-diary format is thought to be Claudio Pinhanez's "Open Diary", which was published at the MIT Media Lab website from 14 November 1994 until 1996.^[1] Other early online diarists include Justin Hall, who began eleven years of personal online diary-writing in 1994,^[2] Carolyn Burke, who started publishing "Carolyn's Diary"^[3] on 3 January 1995, Bryon Sutherland, who announced his diary The Semi-Existence of Bryon in a USENET newsgroup on 19 April 1995,^[4] and David Siegel, who started his journal^[5] on 30 August 1995.

Online diaries soon caught the attention of the media with the publication of the book 24 Hours in Cyberspace (1996) which captured personal profiles of the people involved in early web pages. The earliest book-length scholarly discussion of online diaries is Philippe Lejeune's Cher écran, ("Dear Screen", not yet translated to English).^[6]

The end of 1997 is generally considered the cut-off date for early adopters.^[7]

In 1998, Simon Firth described in Salon magazine^[8] how many early online diarists were abandoning the form. And yet, he said, "While many of the movement's pioneers may be tired and disillusioned, the genre shows plenty of signs of life -- of blossoming, even, into something remarkable: a new literary form that allows writers to connect with readers in an excitingly new way."

Formation of a community

As diarists (sometimes called escribitionists) began to learn from each other, several Webrings formed to connect the various diaries and journals. The most popular Webring was Open Pages, which started in July 1996 and had 537 members as of 20 October 1998. A community website called Diarist.Net was formed and awarded "The Diarist Awards" quarterly from 1999 through 2004. There were a number of lists of diaries and journals by topic, called "'burbs", which allowed people to find sites that had some correlation to each other.^[9]

Mailing lists helped solidify the community. "Collabs" were collaborative projects in which people wrote on given topics and subjects.

Technologies

Some early diaries and journals showcased different emerging internet technologies, including interactive message forums, online stores, RealAudio, RealVideo, live webcams, notify lists, and daily self-photographs.^[10]

Today's diaries and journals may feature podcasts, trackBacks, permalinks, blogrolls and a host of other cutting-edge technologies.

Lifestyle

The formation of diary hosting websites such as Open Diary, Diary-X, Xanga, Femmunity and LiveJournal caused an explosive proliferation of online diaries and journals. Today, interactive online diaries, online journals, personal blogs and group blogs are integrated into the daily lives of many teenagers and college students, with communications between friends playing out online. Even fights may be posted in the diaries, with not-so-veiled insults of each other easily readable by all their friends, enemies, and complete strangers.

Personal opinions on experiences and hobbies are very common in the blog world. Blogs have given the opportunity for people to express their views to a mass audience.

In October 2006, the History Matters campaign, a 2006 joint project by the major heritage organizations in England and Wales, conducted the One Day in History project, asking residents of the UK to write an online diary of what they did on 17 October 2006. The diaries were stored at the British Library from November