A
blog (a truncation of the expression weblog) 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 [citation needed], occasionally of a small group, and often
covered 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, advocacy 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 service. 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.
On
16 February 2011, there were over 156 million public blogs in existence. On 20
February 2014, there were around 172 million Tumblr and 75.8 million WordPress blogs
in existence worldwide. According to critics and other bloggers, Blogger is the
most popular blogging service used today, however Blogger does not offer public
statistics. Technorati has 1.3 million blogs as of February 22, 2014.
History
Early
example of a "diary" style blog consisting of text and images
transmitted wirelessly in real time from a wearable computer with head-up
display, 22 February 1995 Main
articles: History of blogging and online diary.
The
term "weblog" was coined by Jorn Barger on 17 December 1997. The
short form, "blog", was coined by Peter Merholz, who jokingly broke
the word weblog into the phrase we blog in the sidebar of his blog Peterme.com
in April or May 1999. Shortly thereafter, Evan Williams at Pyra Labs used
"blog" as both a noun and verb ("to blog", meaning "to
edit one's weblog or to post to one's weblog") and devised the term
"blogger" in connection with Pyra Labs' Blogger product, leading to
the popularization of the terms.
Origins
Before
blogging became popular, digital communities took many forms, including Usenet,
commercial online services such as GEnie, BiX and the early CompuServe, e-mail
lists and Bulletin Board Systems (BBS). In the 1990s, Internet forum software,
created running conversations with "threads". Threads are topical
connections between messages on a virtual "corkboard".
From
14 June 1993 Mosaic Communications Corporation maintained their "What’s
New" list of new websites, updated daily and archived monthly. The page
was accessible by a special "What's New" button in the Mosaic web
browser.
The
modern blog evolved from the online diary, where people would keep a running
account of their personal lives. Most such writers called themselves diarists,
journalists, or journalers. Justin Hall, who began personal blogging in 1994
while a student at Swarthmore College, is generally recognized as one of the
earlier bloggers, as is Jerry Pournelle. Dave Winer's Scripting News is also
credited with being one of the older and longer running weblogs. The Australian
Netguide magazine maintained the Daily Net News on their web site from 1996.
Daily Net News ran links and daily reviews of new websites, mostly in
Australia. Another early blog was Wearable Wireless Webcam, an online shared
diary of a person's personal life combining text, video, and pictures
transmitted live from a wearable computer and EyeTap device to a web site in
1994. This practice of semi-automated blogging with live video together with
text was referred to as sousveillance, and such journals were also used as evidence
in legal matters.
Early
blogs were simply manually updated components of common Web sites. However, the
evolution of tools to facilitate the production and maintenance of Web articles
posted in reverse chronological order made the publishing process feasible to a
much larger, less technical, population. Ultimately, this resulted in the
distinct class of online publishing that produces blogs we recognize today. For
instance, the use of some sort of browser-based software is now a typical
aspect of "blogging". Blogs can be hosted by dedicated blog hosting
services, or they can be run using blog software, or on regular web hosting
services.
Some
early bloggers, such as The Misanthropic Bitch, who began in 1997, actually
referred to their online presence as a zine, before the term blog entered
common usage.