Blogging

"A frequent chronological publication of personal thoughts and Web links"

That’s one definition of a blog. A blog (from the words web and log) is often a mixture of what is happening in a person’s life and what is happening on the Web, a kind of hybrid diary/guide site, although there are as many unique types of blogs as there are people.

The word blog can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog. Apparently the word came about from web-journal pioneer Travis Petler, who coined the term on his own personal blog back in 1997 while studying at Brown University.

Right there his use of the word spread to other college campuses where other weblogs were present. Of course people maintained blogs long before the term was coined, but the trend gained momentum with the introduction of automated published systems. Thousands of people use such services to simplify and accelerate the publishing process.

Blogs often contain commentary or news on a particular subject, such as food, politics, or local news, while some function as personal online diaries. Probably most popular of these is MySpace where users keep an online diary. These pages can be edited to make a unique space, where your own blog can also be maintained. Entries for a blog are made in journal style and displayed in a reverse chronological order. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. Most blogs are primarily textual although some focus on photographs (photoblog), audio (podcasting) or videos (vlog). These are all part of a wider network of social media. The most popular of the video blogging, or vlog, is YouTube.

Search engines have tracked almost 100 million blogs on the internet!