What the word blog means

A blog (a truncation of «weblog«)^[1] is an informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order so that the most recent post appears first, at the top of the web page. Until 2009, blogs were usually the work of a single individual,^{[citation needed]} occasionally of a small group, and often covered a single subject or topic. In the 2010s, «multi-author blogs» (MABs) emerged, featuring the writing of multiple authors and sometimes 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 the news media. 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 who did not have much experience with HTML or computer programming. Previously, knowledge of such technologies as HTML and File Transfer Protocol had been required to publish content on the Web, and early Web users therefore tended to be hackers and computer enthusiasts. In the 2010s, the majority are interactive Web 2.0 websites, allowing visitors to leave online comments, and it is this interactivity that distinguishes them from other static websites.^[2] In that sense, blogging can be seen as a form of social networking service. Indeed, bloggers not only produce content to post on their blogs but also often build social relations with their readers and other bloggers.^[3] Blog owners or authors often moderate and filter online comments to remove hate speech or other offensive content. There are also high-readership blogs which do not allow comments.

Many blogs provide commentary on a particular subject or topic, ranging from philosophy, religion, and arts to science, politics, and sports. Others function as more personal online diaries or online brand advertising of a particular individual or company. A typical blog combines text, digital images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. 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). In education, blogs can be used as instructional resources; these are referred to as edublogs. Microblogging is another type of blogging, featuring very short posts.

‘Blog’ and ‘blogging’ are now loosely used for content creation and sharing on social media, especially when the content is long-form and one creates and shares content on regular basis. So, one could be maintaining a blog on Facebook or blogging on Instagram. Blogging is writing about what you like. In other words, writing about what you know and providing valuable information to people searching for it.

A 2022 estimate suggested that there were over 600 million public blogs out of more than 1.9 billion websites.^[4]

History

The term «weblog» was coined by Jorn Barger^[5] on December 17, 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 May 1999.^[6][7][8] 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.^[9]

Origins

Before blogging became popular, digital communities took many forms, including Usenet, commercial online services such as GEnie, Byte Information Exchange (BIX) and the early CompuServe, e-mail lists,^[10] 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 June 14, 1993, Mosaic Communications Corporation maintained their «What’s New»^[11] 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 earliest instance of a commercial blog was on the first business to consumer Web site created in 1995 by Ty, Inc., which featured a blog in a section called «Online Diary». The entries were maintained by featured Beanie Babies that were voted for monthly by Web site visitors.^[12]

The modern blog evolved from the online diary where people would keep a running account of the events in 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,^[13] as is Jerry Pournelle.^[14] Dave Winer’s Scripting News is also credited with being one of the older and longer running weblogs.^[15][16] The Australian Netguide magazine maintained the Daily Net News^[17] 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, digital video, and digital 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. 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.

The first research paper about blogging was Torill Mortensen and Jill Walker Rettberg’s paper «Blogging Thoughts»,^[18] which analysed how blogs were being used to foster research communities and the exchange of ideas and scholarship, and how this new means of networking overturns traditional power structures.

Technology

Early blogs were simply manually updated components of common Websites. In 1995, the «Online Diary» on the Ty, Inc. Web site was produced and updated manually before any blogging programs were available. Posts were made to appear in reverse chronological order by manually updating text-based HTML code using FTP software in real time several times a day. To users, this offered the appearance of a live diary that contained multiple new entries per day. At the beginning of each new day, new diary entries were manually coded into a new HTML file, and at the start of each month, diary entries were archived into their own folder, which contained a separate HTML page for every day of the month. Then, menus that contained links to the most recent diary entry were updated manually throughout the site. This text-based method of organizing thousands of files served as a springboard to define future blogging styles that were captured by blogging software developed years later.^[12]

The evolution of electronic and software tools to facilitate the production and maintenance of Web articles posted in reverse chronological order made the publishing process feasible for a much larger and less technically-inclined 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, on regular web hosting services, or run using blog software.

Rise in popularity

After a slow start, blogging rapidly gained in popularity. Blog usage spread during 1999 and the years following, being further popularized by the near-simultaneous arrival of the first hosted blog tools:

• Bruce Ableson launched Open Diary in October 1998, which soon grew to thousands of online diaries. Open Diary innovated the reader comment, becoming the first blog community where readers could add comments to other writers’ blog entries.
• Brad Fitzpatrick started LiveJournal in March 1999.
• Andrew Smales created Pitas.com in July 1999 as an easier alternative to maintaining a «news page» on a Web site, followed by DiaryLand in September 1999, focusing more on a personal diary community.^[19]
• Evan Williams and Meg Hourihan (Pyra Labs) launched Blogger.com in August 1999 (purchased by Google in February 2003)

Political impact

An early milestone in the rise in importance of blogs came in 2002, when many bloggers focused on comments by U.S. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott.^[20] Senator Lott, at a party honoring U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond, praised Senator Thurmond by suggesting that the United States would have been better off had Thurmond been elected president. Lott’s critics saw these comments as tacit approval of racial segregation, a policy advocated by Thurmond’s 1948 presidential campaign. This view was reinforced by documents and recorded interviews dug up by bloggers. (See Josh Marshall’s Talking Points Memo.) Though Lott’s comments were made at a public event attended by the media, no major media organizations reported on his controversial comments until after blogs broke the story. Blogging helped to create a political crisis that forced Lott to step down as majority leader.

Similarly, blogs were among the driving forces behind the «Rathergate» scandal. Television journalist Dan Rather presented documents on the CBS show 60 Minutes that conflicted with accepted accounts of President Bush’s military service record. Bloggers declared the documents to be forgeries and presented evidence and arguments in support of that view. Consequently, CBS apologized for what it said were inadequate reporting techniques (see Little Green Footballs). The impact of these stories gave greater credibility to blogs as a medium of news dissemination.

In Russia, some political bloggers have started to challenge the dominance of official, overwhelmingly pro-government media. Bloggers such as Rustem Adagamov and Alexei Navalny have many followers, and the latter’s nickname for the ruling United Russia party as the «party of crooks and thieves» has been adopted by anti-regime protesters.^[21] This led to The Wall Street Journal calling Navalny «the man Vladimir Putin fears most» in March 2012.^[22]

Mainstream popularity

By 2004, the role of blogs became increasingly mainstream, as political consultants, news services, and candidates began using them as tools for outreach and opinion forming. Blogging was established by politicians and political candidates to express opinions on war and other issues and cemented blogs’ role as a news source. (See Howard Dean and Wesley Clark.) Even politicians not actively campaigning, such as the UK’s Labour Party’s Member of Parliament (MP) Tom Watson, began to blog to bond with constituents. In January 2005, Fortune magazine listed eight bloggers whom business people «could not ignore»: Peter Rojas, Xeni Jardin, Ben Trott, Mena Trott, Jonathan Schwartz, Jason Goldman, Robert Scoble, and Jason Calacanis.^[23]

Israel was among the first national governments to set up an official blog.^[24] Under David Saranga, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs became active in adopting Web 2.0 initiatives, including an official video blog^[24] and a political blog.^[25] The Foreign Ministry also held a microblogging press conference via Twitter about its war with Hamas, with Saranga answering questions from the public in common text-messaging abbreviations during a live worldwide press conference.^[26] The questions and answers were later posted on IsraelPolitik, the country’s official political blog.^[27]

The impact of blogging on the mainstream media has also been acknowledged by governments. In 2009, the presence of the American journalism industry had declined to the point that several newspaper corporations were filing for bankruptcy, resulting in less direct competition between newspapers within the same circulation area. Discussion emerged as to whether the newspaper industry would benefit from a stimulus package by the federal government. U.S. President Barack Obama acknowledged the emerging influence of blogging upon society by saying, «if the direction of the news is all blogosphere, all opinions, with no serious fact-checking, no serious attempts to put stories in context, then what you will end up getting is people shouting at each other across the void, but not a lot of mutual understanding».^[28] Between 2009 and 2012, an Orwell Prize for blogging was awarded.

Types

There are many different types of blogs, differing not only in the type of content, but also in the way that content is delivered or written.

Personal blogs

The personal blog is an ongoing online diary or commentary written by an individual, rather than a corporation or organization. While the vast majority of personal blogs attract very few readers, other than the blogger’s immediate family and friends, a small number of personal blogs have become popular, to the point that they have attracted lucrative advertising sponsorship. A tiny number of personal bloggers have become famous, both in the online community and in the real world.

Collaborative blogs or group blogs

A type of weblog in which posts are written and published by more than one author. The majority of high-profile collaborative blogs are organised according to a single uniting theme, such as politics, technology or advocacy. In recent years, the blogosphere has seen the emergence and growing popularity of more collaborative efforts, often set up by already established bloggers wishing to pool time and resources, both to reduce the pressure of maintaining a popular website and to attract a larger readership.

Microblogging

Microblogging is the practice of posting small pieces of digital content—which could be text, pictures, links, short videos, or other media—on the internet. Microblogging offers a portable communication mode that feels organic and spontaneous to many users. It has captured the public imagination, in part because the short posts are easy to read on the go or when waiting. Friends use it to keep in touch, business associates use it to coordinate meetings or share useful resources, and celebrities and politicians (or their publicists) microblog about concert dates, lectures, book releases, or tour schedules. A wide and growing range of add-on tools enables sophisticated updates and interaction with other applications. The resulting profusion of functionality is helping to define new possibilities for this type of communication.^[29] Examples of these include Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and, by far the largest, Weibo.

Corporate and organizational blogs

A blog can be private, as in most cases, or it can be for business or not-for-profit organization or government purposes. Blogs used internally and only available to employees via an Intranet are called corporate blogs. Companies use internal corporate blogs to enhance the communication, culture and employee engagement in a corporation. Internal corporate blogs can be used to communicate news about company policies or procedures, build employee esprit de corps and improve morale. Companies and other organizations also use external, publicly accessible blogs for marketing, branding, or public relations purposes. Some organizations have a blog authored by their executive; in practice, many of these executive blog posts are penned by a ghostwriter who makes posts in the style of the credited author. Similar blogs for clubs and societies are called club blogs, group blogs, or by similar names; typical use is to inform members and other interested parties of club and member activities.

Aggregated blogs

Individuals or organization may aggregate selected feeds on a specific topic, product or service and provide a combined view for its readers. This allows readers to concentrate on reading instead of searching for quality on-topic content and managing subscriptions. Many such aggregations called planets from name of Planet (software) that perform such aggregation, hosting sites usually have planet. subdomain in domain name (like http://planet.gnome.org/).

By genre

Some blogs focus on a particular subject, such as political blogs, journalism blogs, health blogs, travel blogs (also known as travelogs), gardening blogs, house blogs, Book Blogs,^[30][31] fashion blogs, beauty blogs, lifestyle blogs, party blogs, wedding blogs, photography blogs, project blogs, psychology blogs, sociology blogs, education blogs, niche blogs, classical music blogs, quizzing blogs, legal blogs (often referred to as a blawgs), or dreamlogs. How-to/Tutorial blogs are becoming increasing popular.^[32] Two common types of genre blogs are art blogs and music blogs. A blog featuring discussions, especially about home and family is not uncommonly called a mom blog. While not a legitimate type of blog, one used for the sole purpose of spamming is known as a splog.

By media type

A blog comprising videos is called a vlog, one comprising links is called a linklog, a site containing a portfolio of sketches is called a sketchblog or one comprising photos is called a photoblog. Blogs with shorter posts and mixed media types are called tumblelogs. Blogs that are written on typewriters and then scanned are called typecast or typecast blogs. A rare type of blog hosted on the Gopher Protocol is known as a phlog.

By device

A blog can also be defined by which type of device is used to compose it. A blog written by a mobile device like a mobile phone or PDA could be called a moblog.^[33] One 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. This practice of semi-automated blogging with live video together with text was referred to as sousveillance. Such journals have been used as evidence in legal matters.^{[citation needed]}

Reverse blog

A reverse blog is composed by its users rather than a single blogger. This system has the characteristics of a blog and the writing of several authors. These can be written by several contributing authors on a topic or opened up for anyone to write. There is typically some limit to the number of entries to keep it from operating like a web forum.^{[citation needed]}

Community and cataloging

Blogosphere

The collective community of all blogs and blog authors, particularly notable and widely read blogs, is known as the blogosphere. Since all blogs are on the internet by definition, they may be seen as interconnected and socially networked, through blogrolls, comments, linkbacks (refbacks, trackbacks or pingbacks), and backlinks. Discussions «in the blogosphere» were occasionally used by the media as a gauge of public opinion on various issues. Because new, untapped communities of bloggers and their readers can emerge in the space of a few years, Internet marketers pay close attention to «trends in the blogosphere».^[34]

Blog search engines

Several blog search engines have been used to search blog contents, such as Bloglines (defunct), BlogScope (defunct), and Technorati (defunct).

Blogging communities and directories

Several online communities exist that connect people to blogs and bloggers to other bloggers. Interest-specific blogging platforms are also available. For instance, Blogster has a sizable community of political bloggers among its members. Global Voices aggregates international bloggers, «with emphasis on voices that are not ordinarily heard in international mainstream media.»^[35]

Blogging and advertising

It is common for blogs to feature banner advertisements or promotional content, either to financially benefit the blogger, support website hosting costs, or to promote the blogger’s favourite causes or products. The popularity of blogs has also given rise to «fake blogs» in which a company will create a fictional blog as a marketing tool to promote a product.^[36]

As the popularity of blogging continued to rise (as of 2006), the commercialisation of blogging is rapidly increasing. Many corporations and companies collaborate with bloggers to increase advertising and engage online communities with their products. In the book Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers, Henry Jenkins stated that «Bloggers take knowledge into their own hands, enabling successful navigation within and between these emerging knowledge cultures. One can see such behaviour as co-optation into commodity culture insofar as it sometimes collaborates with corporate interests, but one can also see it as increasing the diversity of media culture, providing opportunities for greater inclusiveness, and making more responsive to consumers.»^[37]

Early popularity

• Before 2006: The blogdex project was launched by researchers in the MIT Media Lab to crawl the Web and gather data from thousands of blogs to investigate their social properties. Information was gathered by the tool for over four years, during which it autonomously tracked the most contagious information spreading in the blog community, ranking it by recency and popularity. It can, therefore,^{[original research?]} be considered the first instantiation of a memetracker. The project was replaced by tailrank.com, which in turn has been replaced by spinn3r.com.
• 2006: Blogs are given rankings by Alexa Internet (web hits of Alexa Toolbar users), and formerly by blog search engine Technorati based on the number of incoming links (Technorati stopped doing this in 2014). In August 2006, Technorati found that the most linked-to blog on the internet was that of Chinese actress Xu Jinglei.^[38] Chinese media Xinhua reported that this blog received more than 50 million page views, claiming it to be the most popular blog in the world.^{[39][better source needed]} Technorati rated Boing Boing to be the most-read group-written blog.^[38]
• 2008: As of 2008, blogging had become such a mania that a new blog was created every second of every minute of every hour of every day.^[40] Researchers have actively analyzed the dynamics of how blogs become popular. There are essentially two measures of this: popularity through citations, as well as popularity through affiliation (i.e., blogroll). The basic conclusion from studies of the structure of blogs is that while it takes time for a blog to become popular through blogrolls, permalinks can boost popularity more quickly and are perhaps more indicative of popularity and authority than blogrolls since they denote that people are actually reading the blog’s content and deem it valuable or noteworthy in specific cases.^[41]

Blurring with the mass media

Many bloggers, particularly those engaged in participatory journalism, are amateur journalists, and thus they differentiate themselves from the professional reporters and editors who work in mainstream media organizations. Other bloggers are media professionals who are publishing online, rather than via a TV station or newspaper, either as an add-on to a traditional media presence (e.g., hosting a radio show or writing a column in a paper newspaper), or as their sole journalistic output. Some institutions and organizations see blogging as a means of «getting around the filter» of media «gatekeepers» and pushing their messages directly to the public. Many mainstream journalists, meanwhile, write their own blogs—well over 300, according to CyberJournalist.net’s J-blog list.^{[citation needed]} The first known use of a blog on a news site was in August 1998, when Jonathan Dube of The Charlotte Observer published one chronicling Hurricane Bonnie.^[42]

Some bloggers have moved over to other media. The following bloggers (and others) have appeared on radio and television: Duncan Black (known widely by his pseudonym, Atrios), Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit), Markos Moulitsas Zúniga (Daily Kos), Alex Steffen (Worldchanging), Ana Marie Cox (Wonkette), Nate Silver (FiveThirtyEight.com), and Ezra Klein (Ezra Klein blog in The American Prospect, now in The Washington Post»). In counterpoint, Hugh Hewitt exemplifies a mass media personality who has moved in the other direction, adding to his reach in «old media» by being an influential blogger. Similarly, it was Emergency Preparedness and Safety Tips On Air and Online blog articles that captured Surgeon General of the United States Richard Carmona’s attention and earned his kudos for the associated broadcasts by talk show host Lisa Tolliver and Westchester Emergency Volunteer Reserves-Medical Reserve Corps Director Marianne Partridge.^[43][44]

Blogs have also had an influence on minority languages, bringing together scattered speakers and learners; this is particularly so with blogs in Gaelic languages. Minority language publishing (which may lack economic feasibility) can find its audience through inexpensive blogging. There are examples of bloggers who have published books based on their blogs, e.g., Salam Pax, Ellen Simonetti, Jessica Cutler, and ScrappleFace. Blog-based books have been given the name blook. A prize for the best blog-based book was initiated in 2005,^[45] the Lulu Blooker Prize.^[46] However, success has been elusive offline, with many of these books not selling as well as their blogs. The book based on Julie Powell’s blog «The Julie/Julia Project» was made into the film Julie & Julia, apparently the first to do so.

Consumer-generated advertising

Consumer-generated advertising is a relatively new and controversial development, and it has created a new model of marketing communication from businesses to consumers. Among the various forms of advertising on blog, the most controversial are the sponsored posts.^[47] These are blog entries or posts and may be in the form of feedback, reviews, opinion, videos, etc. and usually contain a link back to the desired site using a keyword or several keywords. Blogs have led to some disintermediation and a breakdown of the traditional advertising model, where companies can skip over the advertising agencies (previously the only interface with the customer) and contact the customers directly via social media websites. On the other hand, new companies specialised in blog advertising have been established to take advantage of this new development as well. However, there are many people who look negatively on this new development. Some believe that any form of commercial activity on blogs will destroy the blogosphere’s credibility.^[48]

Legal and social consequences

Blogging can result in a range of legal liabilities and other unforeseen consequences.^[49]

Defamation or liability

Several cases have been brought before the national courts against bloggers concerning issues of defamation or liability. U.S. payouts related to blogging totalled $17.4 million by 2009; in some cases these have been covered by umbrella insurance.^[50] The courts have returned with mixed verdicts. Internet Service Providers (ISPs), in general, are immune from liability for information that originates with third parties (U.S. Communications Decency Act and the EU Directive 2000/31/EC). In Doe v. Cahill, the Delaware Supreme Court held that stringent standards had to be met to unmask the anonymous bloggers and also took the unusual step of dismissing the libel case itself (as unfounded under American libel law) rather than referring it back to the trial court for reconsideration.^[51] In a bizarre twist, the Cahills were able to obtain the identity of John Doe, who turned out to be the person they suspected: the town’s mayor, Councilman Cahill’s political rival. The Cahills amended their original complaint, and the mayor settled the case rather than going to trial.

In January 2007, two prominent Malaysian political bloggers, Jeff Ooi and Ahirudin Attan, were sued by a pro-government newspaper, The New Straits Times Press (Malaysia) Berhad, Kalimullah bin Masheerul Hassan, Hishamuddin bin Aun and Brenden John a/l John Pereira over alleged defamation. The plaintiff was supported by the Malaysian government.^[52] Following the suit, the Malaysian government proposed to «register» all bloggers in Malaysia to better control parties against their interests.^[53] This is the first such legal case against bloggers in the country. In the United States, blogger Aaron Wall was sued by Traffic Power for defamation and publication of trade secrets in 2005.^[54] According to Wired magazine, Traffic Power had been «banned from Google for allegedly rigging search engine results.»^[55] Wall and other «white hat» search engine optimization consultants had exposed Traffic Power in what they claim was an effort to protect the public. The case was dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction, and Traffic Power failed to appeal within the allowed time.^[56]

In 2009, NDTV issued a legal notice to Indian blogger Kunte for a blog post criticizing their coverage of the Mumbai attacks.^[57] The blogger unconditionally withdrew his post, which resulted in several Indian bloggers criticizing NDTV for trying to silence critics.^[58]

Employment

Employees who blog about elements of their place of employment can begin to affect the reputation of their employer, either in a positive way, if the employee is praising the employer and its workplaces, or in a negative way, if the blogger is making negative comments about the company or its practices.

In general, attempts by employee bloggers to protect themselves by maintaining anonymity have proved ineffective.^[59] In 2009, a controversial and landmark decision by The Hon. Mr Justice Eady refused to grant an order to protect the anonymity of Richard Horton. Horton was a police officer in the United Kingdom who blogged about his job under the name «NightJack».^[60]

Delta Air Lines fired flight attendant Ellen Simonetti because she posted photographs of herself in uniform on an aeroplane and because of comments posted on her blog «Queen of Sky: Diary of a Flight Attendant» which the employer deemed inappropriate.^[61][62] This case highlighted the issue of personal blogging and freedom of expression versus employer rights and responsibilities, and so it received wide media attention. Simonetti took legal action against the airline for «wrongful termination, defamation of character and lost future wages».^[63] The suit was postponed while Delta was in bankruptcy proceedings.^[64]

In early 2006, Erik Ringmar, a senior lecturer at the London School of Economics, was ordered by the convenor of his department to «take down and destroy» his blog in which he discussed the quality of education at the school.^[65]

Mark Jen was terminated in 2005 after 10 days of employment as an assistant product manager at Google for discussing corporate secrets on his personal blog, then called 99zeros and hosted on the Google-owned Blogger service.^[66] He blogged about unreleased products and company finances a week before the company’s earnings announcement. He was fired two days after he complied with his employer’s request to remove the sensitive material from his blog.^[67]

In India, blogger Gaurav Sabnis resigned from IBM after his posts questioned the claims made by a management school.^[68] Jessica Cutler, aka «The Washingtonienne», blogged about her sex life while employed as a congressional assistant. After the blog was discovered and she was fired,^[69] she wrote a novel based on her experiences and blog: The Washingtonienne: A Novel. As of 2006, Cutler is being sued by one of her former lovers in a case that could establish the extent to which bloggers are obligated to protect the privacy of their real life associates.^[70]

Catherine Sanderson, a.k.a. Petite Anglaise, lost her job in Paris at a British accountancy firm because of blogging.^[71] Although given in the blog in a fairly anonymous manner, some of the descriptions of the firm and some of its people were less than flattering. Sanderson later won a compensation claim case against the British firm, however.^[72]

On the other hand, Penelope Trunk wrote an upbeat article in The Boston Globe in 2006, entitled «Blogs ‘essential’ to a good career».^[73] She was one of the first journalists to point out that a large portion of bloggers are professionals and that a well-written blog can help attract employers.

Business owners

Business owners who blog about their business can also run into legal consequences. Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, was fined during the 2006 NBA playoffs for criticizing NBA officials on the court and in his blog.^[74]

Political dangers

Blogging can sometimes have unforeseen consequences in politically sensitive areas. In some countries, Internet police or secret police may monitor blogs and arrest blog authors or commentators. Blogs can be much harder to control than broadcast or print media because a person can create a blog whose authorship is hard to trace by using anonymity technology such as Tor. As a result, totalitarian and authoritarian regimes often seek to suppress blogs and/or punish those who maintain them.

In Singapore, two ethnic Chinese individuals were imprisoned under the country’s anti-sedition law for posting anti-Muslim remarks in their blogs.^[75] Egyptian blogger Kareem Amer was charged with insulting the Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and an Islamic institution through his blog. It is the first time in the history of Egypt that a blogger was prosecuted. After a brief trial session that took place in Alexandria, the blogger was found guilty and sentenced to prison terms of three years for insulting Islam and inciting sedition and one year for insulting Mubarak.^[76] Egyptian blogger Abdel Monem Mahmoud was arrested in April 2007 for anti-government writings in his blog. Monem is a member of the then banned Muslim Brotherhood. After the 2011 Egyptian revolution, the Egyptian blogger Maikel Nabil Sanad was charged with insulting the military for an article he wrote on his personal blog and sentenced to 3 years.^[77]

After expressing opinions in his personal blog about the state of the Sudanese armed forces, Jan Pronk, United Nations Special Representative for Sudan, was given three days notice to leave Sudan. The Sudanese army had demanded his deportation.^[78][79] In Myanmar, Nay Phone Latt, a blogger, was sentenced to 20 years in jail for posting a cartoon critical of head of state Than Shwe.^[80]

Personal safety

One consequence of blogging is the possibility of online or in-person attacks or threats against the blogger, sometimes without apparent reason. In some cases, bloggers have faced cyberbullying. Kathy Sierra, author of the blog «Creating Passionate Users»,^[81] was the target of threats and misogynistic insults to the point that she cancelled her keynote speech at a technology conference in San Diego, fearing for her safety.^[82] While a blogger’s anonymity is often tenuous, Internet trolls who would attack a blogger with threats or insults can be emboldened by the anonymity of the online environment, where some users are known only by a pseudonymous «username» (e.g., «Hacker1984»). Sierra and supporters initiated an online discussion aimed at countering abusive online behaviour^[83] and developed a Blogger’s Code of Conduct, which set out a rules for behaviour in the online space.

Behaviour

The Blogger’s Code of Conduct is a list of seven proposed ideas.

See also

References

Further reading

External links

• Computer Law and Security Report Volume 22 Issue 2, Pages 127–136 blogs, Lies and the Doocing by Sylvia Kierkegaard (2006)
• Legal Guide for bloggers by the Electronic Frontier Foundation
• Law Library Legal Blawgs Web Archive from the U.S. Library of Congress

Do you know what a blog is?

If you don’t, then you’ve come to the right place. In 1994, when blogs began, a blog was more of a personal diary that people shared online. In this online journal, you could talk about your daily life or share about things that you were doing. Then, people saw an opportunity to communicate information in a new way online. Thus began the beautiful world of blogging.

What is a Blog?

Today, there are more than 570 million blogs on the web. The number of bloggers in the USA alone is set to reach 31.7 million users by 2020.

What is the purpose of a blog?

There are many reasons to start a blog for personal use and only a handful of strong ones for business blogging. Blogging for business, projects, or anything else that might bring you money has a very straightforward purpose – to rank your website higher in Google SERPs, a.k.a. increase your visibility.

As a business, you rely on consumers to keep buying your products and services. As a new business, you rely on blogging to help you get to potential consumers and grab their attention. Without blogging, your website would remain invisible, whereas running a blog makes you searchable and competitive.

So, the main purpose of a blog is to connect you to the relevant audience. Another one is to boost your traffic and send quality leads to your website.

The more frequent and better your blog posts are, the higher the chances for your website to get discovered and visited by your target audience. This means that a blog is an effective lead generation tool. Add a great call to action (CTA) to your content, and it will convert your website traffic into high-quality leads. A blog also allows you to showcase your niche authority and build a brand.

When you use your niche knowledge for creating informative and engaging posts, it builds trust with your audience. Great blogging makes your business look more credible, which is especially important if your brand is still young and fairly unknown. It ensures presence online and niche authority at the same time.

Blog structure

The appearance of blogs has changed over time, and these days blogs include a wide variety of items and widgets. However, most blogs still include some standard features and structures.

Here are common features that a typical blog will include:

• Header with the menu or navigation bar.
• Main content area with highlighted or latest blog posts.
• Sidebar with social profiles, favorite content, or call-to-action.
• Footer with relevant links like a disclaimer, privacy policy, contact page, etc.

The above example is the basic structure of the average blog. Each item has its own importance and helps visitors to navigate through your blog.

Blogs and websites

Many people still wonder if there is any difference between a blog and a website. What is a blog and what is a website? It’s even more challenging to differentiate between the two today. Many companies are integrating blogs into their websites as well, which further confuses the two.

What differentiates blogs from websites?

Blogs need frequent updates. Good examples of this include a food blog sharing meal recipes or a company writing about their industry news.

Blogs also promote reader engagement. Readers have a chance to comment and voice their different concerns and thoughts to the community. Blog owners update their site with new blog posts on a regular basis.

On the other hand, websites consist of the content presented on static pages. Static website owners rarely update their pages.

Key elements that identify a blog post from a static website page include a publishing date, author reference, categories, and tags within a byline. While not all blog posts have all of those byline elements, static website pages do not have any of these items.

From a visitor’s perspective, the content on a static site will not change from one visit to the next. However, depending on the blog owner’s publishing schedule, the content on a blog will offer something new each day, week, or month.

What is blogging?

In the early 2000s, blogging emerged in a variety of forms when several political blogs were born. Blogs with how-to manuals also began to appear. Established institutions began to note the difference between journalism and blogging.

Definition of blogging

Blogging is a collection of skills that one needs to run and supervise a blog. This entails equipping a web page with tools to make the process of writing, posting, linking, and sharing content easier on the internet.

Why is blogging so popular?

It’s important to mention that the popularity of blogging grows with each passing day!
To answer the question ‘what is blogging’, we need to look at the factors behind its rise.

In the early stages, blogs became mainstream, as news services began using them as tools for outreach and opinion forming. They became a new source of information.

Through blogging, businesses saw a positive way to improve their customer’s level of satisfaction. Blogs assist companies in keeping clients and customers up to date. Also, the more people that visit your blog, the more exposure and trust your brand gets.

Personal and niche bloggers saw the potential to reach more people interested in specific topics. Through a blog, visitors can comment and interact with you or your brand which helps you to create a network of loyal followers.

Did you know that you could earn money through blogging? Once your blog receives enough attention and fans, you can investigate ways of monetizing your blog. Through the blog, you can offer your services and sell products.

Who is a blogger?

In recent times, bloggers have become famous for various reasons. Blogging has become an alternative career or side gig for many. Seeing this, even more, people are choosing to join the blogging ranks.

So who are bloggers? Bloggers are individuals who love sharing parts of their lives with you. They post on various topics from arts, home designs, carpentry, and finance articles. Bloggers are mobile and don’t need to be in one place. They live on the internet!

Definition of a blogger

A blogger is someone who runs and controls a blog. He or she shares his or her opinion and knowledge on different topics for a target audience.

Why are many people blogging today?

Would you want to have a blog of your own? Yes!

Most people today are creating blogs for a variety of reasons. Every human being has their own story to tell. Through the internet, bloggers can communicate with a massive number of people.

Why is blogging so popular?

Blogs allow you to talk about any topic you are interested in and express your opinion. You’ll find some bloggers writing on every activity that took place during their day. These activities may range from small things like waking up to major issues like human rights and climate change!

Remember that as a blogger running your own blog, you need to focus on the topics that you are passionate about, and through that focus strive to become one of the best blogs on the web.

Are bloggers getting paid?

Our blogging industry survey proves that bloggers do earn money, but this is not a get-rich-quick kind of profession. Before you can start monetizing your blog, you need to build both your Google SERPs ranking and your niche influence. Those tasks take a lot of time and quality content.

Money-making opportunities won’t present themselves until you’ve gained some credibility in the field. So, get down to business.

Here’s how you can make good money as a top-ranked niche blogger:

• Selling ad space on your blog privately or via Google AdSense.
• Becoming an affiliate partner privately or through ads networks.
• Selling your own digital products such as eBooks and tutorials.
• Selling memberships for access to exclusive content or advice.
• Using your blog as a content marketing tool for your business.

If you’re starting a blog as a way to market and boost your existing business, you probably won’t be selling ad space or memberships. However, you can create and start offering exclusive digital products such as eBooks, guides, or online courses as a lead capturing tool in exchange for visitors’ email addresses. That way, you’ll nudge them one step further down your sales funnel.

Want to start a blog on your own?

Creating your own personal blog takes a few steps. First, you need to decide on a name for your blog, also called a domain name. Then, you need to choose the best blogging platform for your needs. We recommend going with a self-hosted platform. There are a few choices when it comes to self-hosted platforms, but the most popular is WordPress.org.

The next step is to choose a web hosting service. For new bloggers, we strongly recommend Bluehost. You will get a Free domain name when you sign up with them and if you don’t like their services, they offer a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Conclusion

We hope that you’ve learned some helpful information about the world of blogging. If you’ve managed to start a blog, then your next step is to work on your blog content in order to keep your future readers satisfied and engaged. Feel free to check out our extensive list of blogging resources which will help you to run and grow your new blog!

The blogger is a function that was created by «Pyra Labs», which is a company that balances the word blog and the creator of the blogger function. The blog was obtained by google for many years, because it allows you to create and publish a hypothesis online. For these arguments to be published, beneficiaries do not have to write any code or install scripting or service programs. The hosted in blogger blogs are usually led by the services of google within blogspot.com domination.

The blog is divided into two parts that are, the people’s blog and the services blog.

The people blogger is a controversial or informational site published on the world wide web that consists of discrete entries of the «posts» which are displayed in reverse chronological order where the newest posts will appear first. In 2009, blogs were generally the work of a single person or also of a small group. The blog of various authors such as the «mabs», which stands for » antiblockiersystem «, this has developed posts written by a number of authors that are professionally edited.

On the other hand, the «MAB» of newspapers, as well as other media, universities, research centers, support groups and other similar institutions of «microblogging», twitter are the ones that help to integrate the «MAB» and Author-only blogs on social newstreams.

The service blogger is a blog post that allows blogs to be multi-user with their respective entry, date and time. It also allows blogger users to publish blogs in other armies through «FTP» which stands for «File Transfer Protocol», because all blogs are transferred to Google’s own servers, which are domains that have not been allowed. via blogspot.com. and your custom urls. Unlike «WordPress», Blogger cannot be installed on a web server. But you have to use the facilities of «DNS» which means «Domain Name System», to be governed by a custom «URL» for a domain of blogspot.

In the strictest sense, a blog can be defined as a website or webpage containing individual blog posts or published alongside other blogs presented in reverse chronological order. A Blog post consists of text, images, and digital resources published onto a site or page which can be accessed and read online. 

A blog can be managed by a single individual, a small group, or a corporate marketing team and there are many different types of blogs. Blogs are often written in an informal or conversational style and contain various elements and features that help them to achieve the goals they were created for.

What is a Blog? A Short History of Blogging

Blogging has existed for many years, with the very first blog post published online in 1994. In the years since, the blog has evolved from a short passage of text into a diversified internet resource used by billions to learn, share information, and generate revenue. 

As more and more people learned how to start a blog, personal blogs emerged in the late 90s as a form of digital journaling, alongside the first blogs about news and events (1998). By the turn of the century, novel blogging platforms like Blogger had emerged, and people were beginning to share blog posts, comment on them and – you guessed it, make money. By around 2002, blog advertising started to change the blogging game, and dedicated blog search engines had emerged.   

By 2003 – with the launch of Google’s AdSense – bloggers quickly realized the potential that blogs held to make money, while companies and brands were scrambling to get in on the blogging action. With sites like WordPress allowing bloggers to build their own blog websites and video blogging (or ‘vlogging’) accompanying the rise of YouTube, the humble blog was making its presence known.

Today, various types of blogs perform vital roles in business, marketing, sales, and driving the internet information economy. Blogs have begun to evolve rapidly with Web 3.0 advancements and elements of responsive design, AI, UX, and mobile. This is pushing a booming blog industry into playing an increasingly important role in the passion and creator economies. 

Blogs vs. Websites vs. Wikis

Understanding the answer to what is a blog begins with separating it from everything else.

Think of the internet as an enormous library. Websites are like shelves containing many different books, and each blog post represents a book on a shelf. Every day, new books are added and removed from the collection, and shelves are moved closer to the entrance based on how good, bad, relevant or current the information sitting on them is. 

Wikis, on the other hand, are like non-fiction books in those libraries. They are public property and can be edited or revised by pretty much anyone, anonymously too. Blogs are like published novels or textbooks and can only be created and posted by their author, with the blogger responsible for their content. 

Blogs are unlike websites; they exist either as a section of a website or as individual posts on a blog platform, but not as a standalone website. Blogs are updated regularly, are far more effective at engaging with audiences, and can be added, removed, or changed on a website as often as you like. 

Blog Websites and Platforms

Blogs can be published online by posting in places where internet search engines can find them. Ideally, bloggers will want to post their blogs on dedicated blog websites or on blogging platforms, providing an avenue for people who may want to read them (AKA’ niche audiences’) with a way to do so. 

Readers can browse platforms, search for specific blogs using tags, keywords, or filters, or simply run a search online and click on the results linking them to various blog content.