Where does the word blog come from

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

The word blog is actually a shortened form of its original name, “weblog.” These weblogs allowed early internet users to “log” the details of their day in diary-style entries. Blogs often allow readers to comment, so as they became more common, communities sprung up around popular blogs.

Is the word blog an acronym?

Have you ever asked yourself, “What does ‘blog’ stand for?” The term itself is not an acronym, instead it’s a shortened version of what Internet enthusiasts once called a “web log.”

Who wrote the first blog?

Most experts agree that the first blog was Links.net, created in 1994 by then-student Justin Hall as a place to publish his writing. The site consisted entirely of brief posts, each one sharing a link and some of his thoughts on the content within.

What is the definition of blog?

: a Web site on which someone writes about personal opinions, activities, and experiences. blog. verb. blogged; blogging.

What is the best definition of a blog?

A blog (a truncation of “weblog”) is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Blog can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

What is the importance of blog?

Blogs give you something to share and talk about on your social media channels. Another great reason for starting a blog is to help your social media. A blog article gives you something to talk about and share. Choose topics that people are likely to share and post them on Twitter, Facebook, Google + and LinkedIn.

What are disadvantages of blogging?

1-Poor content – Poorly written content can reflect badly on your brand. Put some thought into what you blog about and ensure your work has been edited and reviewed. 2-Inconsistent posts – If you decide to blog, make sure you do it consistently.

What is the benefits of using blogs in education?

Blogs offer many benefits for education: Promotes autonomous learning by providing opportunities for students to take more control of their learning. Motivates students to become better readers and writers. Promotes discussion among students.

What is the purpose of a personal blog?

To help you assess your options, here are seven reasons to have a personal blog. Write a personal journal to share your journey with a broader audience. This can be an old-fashioned diary format to express yourself or it can focus on a major event in your life to aid others. Support a cause to get wider reach.

What are 4 common types of blogs?

The four most common types of blogs are Personal blogs, Business blogs, Niche blogs, and Affiliate blogs.

Why do most blogs fail?

One of the reasons why bloggers fail is that they’re not producing engaging, outstanding quality content. With so much content being produced, great content is the minimum bet for getting in the game. As a result, you can provide your audience with information that they wouldn’t be able to access on any other blog.

Is a personal blog a good idea?

Having a personal blog does wonders for your writing and your enthusiasm, and can be the best way to explore, experiment and learn about blogging and how you want to be seen online. Having a personal blog can be an incredibly enriching experience, and can often be a source of satisfaction, no matter what the motive.

Do personal blogs make money?

Naturally, there is a very high correlation between time, effort, and money. Most bloggers quit within the first year. However, if you were to stick with it, money is there. If you are willing to post solid, strategic content 3 times a week without fail, then in year one you can make anywhere from $1,000 – $10,000.

Should you start a blog in 2020?

You should probably start a blog in 2020. Despite claims that no one wants to read long-form content, or that all content will be delivered via video, the fact is, Blogging is still an extremely viable and effective medium for creating content and building an online business, even today.

Who is the best blogger in the world?

List of Top 10 Bloggers of the World & Their Earning

• Rand Fishkin – Moz.
• Pete Cashmore – Mashable.
• Michael Arrington – TechCrunch.
• Brian Clark – CopyBlogger.
• Mario Armando Lavanderia Jr – Perez Hilton.
• Peter Rojas – Gizmodo.
• Vitaly Friedman – Smashing Magazine.
• Cyan Claire – Tuts+

Who is the highest paid blogger?

Top 10 highest-earning bloggers

• Moz: $44.9 million per year.
• PerezHilton: $41.3 million per year.
• Copyblogger: $33.1 million per year.
• Mashable: $30 million per year.
• TechCrunch: $22.5 million per year.
• Envato Tuts+: $10 million per year.
• Smashing Magazine: $5.2 million per year.
• Gizmodo: $4.8 million per year.

Who is No 1 blogger in the world?

1. Amit Agarwal (Labnol) Amit Agarwal, a techie by heart and a writer by hobby is India’s first professional blogger who pioneered blogging in a true sense.

Who is the richest blogger in the world?

List Of World’s Richest and Top Paid Bloggers

Name	Website	Monthly Income
Mario Lavandeira	Perez Hilton	$450,000
Vitaly Friedman	Smashing Magazine	$190,000
Pat Flynn	Small Passive Income	$153,000
Amit Aggarwal	Labnol	$63,000

What type of blogs make the most money?

10 Top Money Making Blogs

• Finance Blog.
• Fashion Blog.
• Travel Blog.
• Marketing Blog.
• Health and Fitness Blog.
• Mom Blog.
• Food Blog.
• Lifestyle Blog.

How do bloggers get paid?

One of the most common ways bloggers make money is through placing ads on their site. Each time a reader clicks on the ad, you are paid for that click. CPM Ads: CPM Ads, or “cost per 1,000 impressions,” are ads that pay you a fixed amount of money based on how many people view your ad.

How do beginner bloggers make money?

These are the 7 steps to follow to make money blogging.

1. Setup your own self-hosted blog.
2. Start publishing great content.
3. Build organic traffic to your website.
4. Build a community around your brand.
5. Start making money by selling ads.
6. Make money by selling your own products or services.
7. Makey money through affiliate marketing.

How many views does blogger need to get paid?

How many pageviews you need to make a full-time income blogging. If you have more than 100,000 pageviews a month on your blog (total pageviews, not unique) you should be blogging full-time (i.e. earning more than $3,500/month from your blog).

What is blog example?

A blog (a shortened version of “weblog”) is an online journal or informational website displaying information in reverse chronological order, with the latest posts appearing first, at the top. It is a platform where a writer or a group of writers share their views on an individual subject.

Whats a good title for a blog?

10 Tips for Creating Great Blog Titles

• 10 Tips for Creating Great Blog Titles.
• Learn the Popular Headline Formulas.
• Pay Attention to Headlines You Like.
• Practice Writing Blog Titles.
• Use Your Keyword Research.
• Write Multiple Blog Titles for Every Post.
• Don’t Oversell.
• Appeal to Emotions.

What are the types of blog?

Let’s take a look at the most popular types of blogs that exist:

1. Fashion Blogs. Fashion blogs are one of the most popular types of blogs on the internet.
2. Food Blogs. Food blogs are another popular blog type.
3. Travel Blogs.
4. Music Blogs.
5. Lifestyle Blogs.
6. Fitness Blogs.
7. DIY Blogs.
8. Sports Blogs.

How do you describe a blog?

How to write an effective blog description:

• Include your blog name and author-name.
• Add your blog topic/primary keyword.
• Add credentials to stand out.
• Use psychological power words.
• Keep the description within 150-155 characters.
• Use Yoast SEO WordPress plugin to optimize it.

How do I describe my personal blog?

Here are some of the tips.

• The blog description limit is 320 characters. It can be shorter though.
• Use conversational words; like you and I. People like to be addressed.
• Use impact or power words.
• Cut out filler words.
• Include your main keyword in the blog description.

What is a lifestyle blog?

“A lifestyle blogger creates content inspired and curated from their personal interests and daily activities. As such, lifestyle blogs are oftentimes highly personalized to the author’s location, life stage and experience.”

What is in a blog?

So exactly what is a blog? A blog is an online diary or journal located on a website. The content of a blog typically includes text, pictures, videos, animated GIFs and even scans from old physical offline diaries or journals and other hard copy documents.

Blog? Wtf is that? 

You would be saying those exact words too back in 1997.

Today, a blog is synonymous with websites or articles on a website.

But where did the word blog come from?

It sounds like a freak of nature.

How did the word blog come about?

The word blog is derived from the word Weblog coined by John Barger in 1997.

Weblog doesn’t sound cool enough, so Peter Merholz did the best thing and shortened it to “blog.”

The genius decided to break the word up into two by writing “we blog” in the sidebar of his blog, peterme.com.

Many people in the weblog circle saw the sidebar “we blog” many times. And I guess the word was adopted, and it stuck.

We use the word blog when we refer to writing articles on the web or a website. Instead of saying, “I’m going to start a website,” we can say, “I’m going to start a blog.”

Here’s food for thought. Some bloggers may disagree with the following:

A blog can mean a blog entry or a blog post. 

You can say, “here’s one of the blogs I’ve written after breaking up with my best friend, Michael.”

The following is a “blog” I wrote discussing why the word “blog” can also be short for a blog entry or a blog post: Blog or blogs.

What do you think?

Conclusion

You’d think that with the number of people on the planet, only Peter Merholz thought of the word “blog”?

I’m sure there was someone who thought weblog could be broken up into two words. People who hated the word “weblog,” and decides to shorten it with the word “blog.”

Of course, there were many. I’m sure of that. But Peter Merholz was the one who put it into action, and now he is the one who comes to mind when you ask, “where did the word blog come from?”

And the word “blog” has become synonymous with many things online today.

You can pretty much replace the word website, web page, blog post, or blog entry with the word “blog.”

Am I correct that we can use the word “blog” instead of saying blog entry or blog post? 

Whether I’m right or wrong, it doesn’t matter because you need to start your blog and start making money online on autopilot.

It’s a little harder now but there are many blogging tools that can make things a little bit easier.

Just like Peter Merholz, take action. And one day you’ll also reap the benefits.

Blogs are typically written in chronological order and displayed in reverse chronological order to the reader. Online media, such as discussion forums and email lists are also considered to be predecessors to the blog.

The origins of blogging go further back than the Internet to the days of personal diaries, chronicles and other written forms of personal musings. Today, a blog is considered to be a Web page that serves as a publicly accessible personal journal for an individual or company. Blogs are typically written in chronological order and displayed in reverse chronological order to the reader. Online media, such as discussion forums and email lists are also considered to be predecessors to the blog.

What Does the Word ‘Blog’ Mean?

The word blog itself is a play on the words Weblog, as most blogs will be displayed in a journal or log entry format, where most are updated daily or more frequently than most Web sites would be. Blogs often reflect the personality of the author or the company employees they represent. To this end the most accurate and fitting evolution of today’s blog comes from online diaries where the diarist would keep an online journal of themselves.

Other popular forms of blogging in business have included updates published by using the finger protocol. This was a widely popular delivery method for online journals in the mid 1990’s made popular by 3D game developers, such as id Software and 3DRealms, who used the finger protocol to provide news and interesting details about in-development games to their fans.

The Origins of the Word Blog

The Blog Herald cites the origins of the term weblog to G. Raikundalia & M. Rees, two lecturers from Bond University on the Gold Coast. The term was first used in a paper titled “Exploiting the World-Wide Web for Electronic Meeting Document Analysis and Management.” Popular use of the term Weblog as we know it today is from Jorn Barger of the Weblog Robot Wisdom (robotwisdom.com) in December 1997. Barger coined the term weblog meaning logging the Web. In 1999 programmer Peter Merholz shortened the term weblog to blog.

Timeline of Notable Blogging Events

1994, January	Justin Hall a Swarthmore College student creates what is considered to be the very first blog “Links.net”. Some industry trackers cite the first blog as belonging to David Winer, “Scripting News” (1997).
1997, December	Jorn Barger coins the term Weblog.
1998, October	Open Diary is founded.
1999, April	April: Peter Merholz shortens Weblog to blog.
1999, July	The first free weblog tool launches (Pitas).
1999, August	Pyra releases Blogger.
2002, February	Heather Armstrong is fired for discussing her job on her blog. The term “Dooced” (see below) is coined.
2002, August	Gizmodo launches.
2003, February	Google buys Blogger from Pyra (1 million blogger users, with 200,000 active).
2003, June	Google launches AdSense and incorporates matching ads to blog content.
2003, July	MySpace launches.
2003, August	TypePad (blogging and hosting service) launches.
2004, December	MSN Spaces launches (which ties in MSN Messenger and Hotmail services with blogging)
2005, March	AOL launches its RED Blogs service, aimed at the teen segment
2005, July	News Corp buyst Intermix Media (owner of Myspace.com) for $580 million.
2005, October	AOL buys blog publisher Weblogs Inc. ($25 million).
2005, August	TypePad launches TypePad Mobile (mobile blogging tools).
2005, November	Andrew Sullivan moves his popular blog “Daily Dish” to Time.com. Time gets advertising revenues from the blog and Sullivan is paid a fee for his services.
2005, November	DigitalGrit launches its Business Blog Service
2006, June	eBay launches user blogs at its eBay Live! conference.
2006, August	Google pays $900 million in shared revenue to be the exclusive search provider for MySpace.com

Common Blogging Phrases

Like most new technologies, the blogosphere (blogging world) is full of new words, terms, and slang used to describe blogs and the act of blogging. To get you started on knowing the lingo, here are some of the many blog-related terms you’ll find written online today.

blog: Short for Web log, a blog is a Web page that serves as a publicly accessible personal journal for an individual. Typically updated daily, blogs often reflect the personality of the author.

blogger: A person who blogs.

blogging: The act of writing or updating your blog.

blogosphere: Meaning all blogs, it is an expression used to describe the ‘world of blogs’.

blogroll: Found on blogs it is a list of links to other blogs and Web sites that the blog author commonly references or is affiliated with. Blogrolls help blog authors to establish and build upon a their blogger community.

blogsnob: (1) A slang term used to describe a blogger who doesn’t respond to blog comments left by people outside his or her own circle of blogger friends.
(2) Written as BlogSnob, a free advertising exchange for blogs and personal sites.

b-blog: Short for business blog, a blog used by a business to promote itself.

klog: Short for knowledge blog, klog is a type of blog usually used as an internal / Intranet blog that is not accessible to the general public and that serves as a knowledge management system. The term klog is also being used to describe a blog that is technical content oriented.

moblog: Acronym used to combine the terms “mobile” and “Web log”. Where a Web log (also called a blog) is a Web page that serves as a publicly accessible personal journal for an individual, a moblog is a blog which has been posted to the Internet from a mobile device such as a mobile phone or PDA.

tagging: Commonly used in blogs, site authors attach keyword descriptions (called tags) to identify images or text within their site as a categories or topic. Web pages and blogs with identical tags can then be linked together allowing users to search for similar or related content. If the tags are made public, online pages that act as a Web-based bookmark service are able to index them. tags can be created using words, acronyms or numbers. Tags are also called tagging, blog tagging, folksonomies (short for folks and taxonomy), or social bookmarking.

Blog and Ping: An online marketing term applied to a system that utilizes blogs and pings (short for pingback) to deliver content and /or sites for indexing in search engines with the ultimate aim of profit. Also called blog ping.

vlog: Short for video blog, it is the term used to describe a blog that includes or consists of video clips. Typically updated daily (or with regular frequency) vlogs often reflect the personality or cause of the author. Also called vog.

Did You Know… I’ve Been Dooced!

The term dooce means “To lose ones job (fired) because of something you have posted in a blog.” Dooce was coined ion 2002 by Heather Armstrong, a Los Angeles Web designer who lost her job after writing about work colleagues in her personal blog, dooce.com.

Blogging Platforms

Before blogging services were freely available, bloggers needed at least some knowledge of HTML and have a place to host their Weblog. In the late 1990s blogging became very popular, and as a result multiple free blogging software and services have become available to help people start a blog. Free services offer bloggers an easy to use browser interface to maintain and edit blogs. Users can freely join the following hosted blog services.

• Blogger http://www.blogger.com/
• LiveJournal http://www.livejournal.com/
• WordPress http://www.wordpress.com/
• Xanga (Xanga.com, Inc)http://www.xanga.com/
• Tumblr https://www.tumblr.com/
• Squarespace http://squarespace.com/
• Typepad http://www.typepad.com/

Based in Nova Scotia, Vangie Beal is has been writing about technology for more than a decade. She is a frequent contributor to EcommerceGuide and managing editor at Webopedia. You can tweet her online @AuroraGG.

This article was last updated on November 08, 2014

The idea of the first blog originated from the rise of the INTERNET and its widespread popularity in much later half of the 20^th century, probably in 1994. Of course, now the word popular doesn’t do much justice to describe the Internet, as it’s basically a necessary limb to quench our curiosity (Damn, what wordplay, man!)

The first-ever blog was created by Justine Hall which you can still visit at links.net but the name actually came from the word Weblog which meant exactly as it sounds- logging web as it is browsed. It was coined by Jorn Barger who authored the Internet’s First blog Robot Wisdom.

Then came the word Blog.

Although, that’s not the answer to the question at all. The real essence of the question is- the idea of a blog and the need for it and how it comes in your mind.

Well, it all comes from the mind first (duh, stating the obvious |

                                                                                       Let me explain…)

That itch

When a bug is scratching and you just want to be relieved from it. You just use your hands and get that itch out, from your brain to your post, out it goes. You feel that you have so much information that you just want to get it out of your brain. This does better than you think, you relieve your brain and you benefit others as well.

Psychological Release

Blogs are a medium to blurt out your thoughts into cyberspace (Woah dude, old man term). How do I explain (with a perfect metaphor)? Here it is, it’s like when you sneeze, you just get everything out that is not necessary for your body otherwise it’s chaos (lay off dirty details, boy | sorry). Really though, this is a platform where you can just get the unnecessary and stuffy stuff out of your mind to lighten yourself and be left with other useful thoughts that will actually help you concentrate. A diary with the choice to make it public or keep private.

Master of Region

You’re the king. You are the Elder. You’re the confidant of the field. Those preceding statements basically mean that you come with a strong command on the topic that you want to share with everyone. Blogs are majorly used for spreading knowledge about a specific subject be it academic, political, or anything deemed worthy by the layman.

Spreading Ever-Needed Awareness

The jargon nowadays is “Woke” but yeah, blogs have major credit when it comes to spreading awareness to the unaware and to the ignorant. They have proven essential tools to get articulated information about the latest issues and affairs out into the world. Harsh truth though, blogs about awareness are not hot with people trying to avoid their own fault as it’s the truth that is written in ASCII code delivered electronically. (Note from Author: Don’t mind, eh? :-p)

Pocket-Greenery

I think this title seems a little offensive, right? I have to be honest with you all, peeps. This may seem obvious and the truth might seem to be sitting on your face but this world has shifted to Capitalism, also, entrepreneurs have devised a variety of methods to derive money from the deepest of the crevices (metaphorically and literally, both). Blogs have been both an outlet and a way to earn extra income either through ad revenue or for marketing purposes. Well, as I see it, it’s a win-win situation either way.

Any of the above that is satisfied gives a purpose to the blog.

All of the blogs need a sound mind and stable current psych to write out the words otherwise they won’t just come out. This is called a Writer’s Block. This happens when although we have a purpose but lack the sense of an approach to ink out the words. At that time those specific words seem more valuable when we need them utmost but don’t have them with us.

The simplest step in writing is starting with just one Word, the first word ever, and then let your skull noodle do the rest.

I was stuck after my first blog and with a messed-up mindset, could not type out, which resulted in fulfilling the first 2 conditions I mentioned in this blog (The itch and psych release).

After all, I am nothing but a flawed being.