Resources > Articles > Blogging
Blogging
by Alvin Azeez
Weblogs or 'Blogs' are personal Websites consisting of regularly updated entries displayed in reverse chronological order. They read like a diary or journal, but with the most recent entry at the top.
The term "weblog" was coined by Jorn Barger, editor of robotwisdom.com in December 1997. By 1999, the term was shortened to "blog" by Peter Merholz. Today, the term blog seems the most dominant, and it is used as a noun or verb.
Blogs are typically created by independent writers (although some reporters for media companies create blogs on newspaper or magazine sites). Some are personal journals; others resemble newsletters or columns. Often, they contain links to other sources of content. A kind of hybrid diary/guide site, although there are as many unique types of blogs as there are people.
People maintained blogs long before the term was coined. Most early weblogs were manually updated, but the trend gained momentum with the introduction of automated publishing systems, which are tools to automate the maintenance of such sites. This has made them accessible to a much larger population. A good example of an automated publishing system is Blogger at blogger.com. Thousands of people use services such as Blogger to simplify and accelerate the publishing process.
Blogging is quickly becoming the most explosive outbreak in the information world since the Internet itself. An overwhelming amount of the information that is generated and directed to the public everyday is digital; be it photos, Powerpoint presentations, online newspapers and magazines, and emails. With just a few clicks, every one of these items can be broadcast into the blogosphere by anyone with an internet connection.
Blogging has placed the world of mass media into the hands of the average internet user. Anyone can become a blog publisher in the ten minutes it takes to sign up. Once you start building relationships with other bloggers and getting them to link to your blog, the size of your audience explodes.
Blogging, despite its popularity, is in its infancy. There are companies out there that are working to improve and expand its capabilities. For example, Six Apart, a company out of San Francisco, is a leader in blog software. Companies such as Technorati and PubSub Concepts lead in blog search. Let's not forget the Internet giants such as Google, Yahoo and Microsoft as they are getting involved as well. Google's Blogger is now the world's biggest service to set people up as bloggers. Like any new internet technology, the rules that govern its use don't exist, not yet anyway.
If you are interested in searching for a blog on a specific topic, you can search the entire blog universe using the Blog Google search engine at http://blogsearch.google.com/ Just enter a topic and all of the blogs on that subject will come up.
Why would businesses want to embrace this you may ask? Well, the internet has up to now been a collection of documents that rarely change. Blogs are different; they change with every posting, each of which is tied to a moment. If a company can track millions of blogs at the same time it will get a minute by minute feel of what any part of the world is thinking about. The Web is a catalogue of what we have learned, but blogs tracks what's on our minds. Think of the business implications.
About the Author:
Mr Alvin Azeez is a Technical Analyst at Providence Technology Group, one of the leading IT service and solution providers in the Bahamas. Providence Technology Group specializes in Networking Solutions, Software Solutions and Consulting & Advisory Services. Mr Azeez has a Bachelor of Arts (Computer Sciences) and is Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator (MCSA). He possesses over 6 years experience in network support, administration and management.
