Blog

A blog is a website in which journal entries are posted on a regular basis and displayed in reverse chronological order. The term blog is a shortened form of weblog or web log. Authoring a blog, maintaining a blog or adding an article to an existing blog is called "blogging". Individual articles on a blog are called "blog posts," "posts" or "entries". A person who posts these entries is called a "blogger". A blog comprises hypertext, images, and links (to other webpages and to video, audio and other files). Blogs use a conversational style of documentation. Often blogs focus on a particular "area of interest", such as Washington, D.C.'s political goings-on. Some blogs discuss personal experiences.

Blogs can be hosted by a blog hosting service, or can be run by a user with blog software on a regular web hosting service.

Blog basics

A blog entry typically consists of the following:

Title - main title of the post,
Body - main content of the post,
Comments - comments added by readers
Category (or tags) - category the post is labeled with (optional, multiple categories possible)
Permalink - the URL of the full, individual article
Post Date - date and time the post was published
Trackback - links back from other sites

How blogs differ from traditional sites

A blog has certain attributes that distinguish it from a standard web page. It allows for easy creation of new pages: new data is entered into a simple form (usually with the title, the category, and the body of the article) and then submitted. Automated templates take care of adding the article to the home page, creating the new full article page (Permalink), and adding the article to the appropriate date- or category-based archive. It allows for easy filtering of content for various presentations: by date, category, author, or other attributes. It usually allows the administrator to invite and add other authors, whose permissions and access are easily managed.

Difference from forums or newsgroups

Blogs are different from forums or newsgroups. Only the author or authoring group can create new subjects for discussion on a blog. A network of blogs can function like a forum in that every entity in the blog network can create subjects of their choosing for others to discuss. Such networks require interlinking to function, so a group blog with multiple people holding posting rights is now becoming more common. Even where others post to a blog, the blog owner or editor will initiate and frame discussion.

Digital media

While straight text and hyperlinks dominate, some blogs emphasize images (such as web comics and photoblogs) and videos (see videoblogging).

Some textual blogs link to audio files (see podcasting). A notable niche is the MP3 blog, which specializes in posting music from specific genres. New words have been coined for many of these content-oriented blogs, such as "moblog" (for "mobile blog").

History

Precursors

Electronic communities existed before internetworking. For example the AP wire was, in effect, similar to a large chat room with "wire fights" and electronic conversations. Another pre-digital electronic community, amateur (or "ham") radio, allowed individuals who set up their own broadcast equipment to communicate with others directly. Ham radio also had logs called "glogs" that were personal diaries made using wearable computers in the early 1980s.

Before blogging became popular, digital communities took many forms, including Usenet, e-mail lists and bulletin board systems (BBS). In the 1990s Internet forum software, such as WebX, created running conversations with "threads." Threads are topical connections between messages on a electronic "corkboard." See "Common terms," below.

Diarists kept journals on the Web: most called themselves online diarists, journalists, journallers, or journalers. A few called themselves escribitionists. The Open Pages webring included members of the online-journal community. The first famous journaller was probably Justin Hall.

Other forms of journals kept online also existed. A notable example was game programmer John Carmack's widely read journal, published via the finger protocol.

Websites, including both corporate sites and personal homepages, had and still often have "What's New" or "News" sections, often on the index page and sorted by date.

Blogging appears

The term "weblog" was coined by Jorn Barger on 17 December 1997. The short form, "blog," was coined by Peter Merholz. He broke the word weblog into the phrase "we blog" in the sidebar of his weblog in April or May of 1999. [1] "Blog" was accepted as a noun (weblog shortened) and as a verb ("to blog," meaning "to edit one's weblog or a post to one's weblog"). [2]

Justin Hall, who began eleven years of personal "blogging" in 1994 while a student at Swarthmore College, is generally recognized as one of the earliest bloggers. The site Xanga, launched in 1996, had only 100 diaries by 1997, and over 50 000 000 as of December 2005. Blog usage spread during 1999 and the years following, being further popularized by the near-simultaneous arrival of the first hosted blog tools: Evan Williams and Meg Hourihan (Pyra Labs) launched Blogger.com (which was purchased by Google in February 2003), and Paul Kedrosky's GrokSoup. As of March 2003, the Oxford English Dictionary included the terms weblog, weblogging and weblogger in their dictionary. [3]

Dave Winer is the one of the pioneers of the tools that make blogs more than merely websites. One of his most significant contributions was setting up servers that weblogs could ping to update themselves.

Blogging combined the personal web page with tools to make linking to other pages easier — specifically blogrolls and TrackBacks. This enabled bloggers to control the threads that connected them to others with similar interests, thereby wresting control from forum moderators.

Blogging gains influence

The first broadly popular American blogs emerged in 2001: Andrew Sullivan's AndrewSullivan.com, Ron Gunzburger's Politics1.com, Jerome Armstrong's MyDD, and Markos Moulitsas Zúniga's DailyKos — all blogging primarily on politics.

By 2001, blogging was enough of a phenomenon that how-to manuals began to appear, primarily focusing on technique. The importance of the blogging community (and its relationship to larger society) gained rapidly increasing importance. Established schools of journalism began researching blogging and noting the differences between journalism and blogging.

In 2002, many blogs focused on comments by U.S. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott. 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 a 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.

The shaping of this story gave greater credibility to blogs as a medium of news dissemination. Though often seen as partisan gossips, bloggers sometimes lead the way in bringing key information to public light. This puts the mainstream media in the unusual position of reacting to news bloggers generate.

Since 2003, blogs have gained increasing notice and coverage for their role in breaking, shaping, and spinning news stories. The Iraq war saw both left-wing and right-wing bloggers taking measured and passionate points of view that did not reflect the traditional left-right divide.

Blogging by established politicians and political candidates, to express opinions on war and other issues, cemented blogs' role as a news source. (See Howard Dean and Wesley Clark.) Meanwhile, an increasing number of experts blogged, making blogs a source of in-depth analysis. (See Daniel Drezner and J. Bradford DeLong.)

The second Iraq war was the first "blog war" in another way: Iraqi bloggers gained wide readership, and one, Salam Pax, published a book of his blog. Blogs were also created by soldiers serving in the Iraq war. Such "milblogs" gave readers new perspectives on the realities of war, as well as often offering different viewpoints from those of official news sources.

Blogging was used to draw attention to obscure news sources. For example, bloggers posted links to traffic cameras in Madrid as a huge anti-terrorism demonstration filled the streets in the wake of the March 11 attacks.

Bloggers began to provide nearly-instant commentary on televised events, creating a secondary meaning of the word "blogging": to simultaneously transcribe and editorialize speeches and events shown on television. (For example, "I am blogging Rice's testimony" means "I am posting my reactions to Condoleezza Rice's testimony into my blog as I watch her on television.") Real-time commentary is sometimes referred to as "liveblogging."

Blogging gains popularity

In 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. Even politicians not actively campaigning, such as MP Tom Watson of the UK Labour Party, began to blog to bond with constituents.

Minnesota Public Radio broadcast a program by Christopher Lydon and Matt Stoller called "The Blogging of the President," which covered a transformation in politics that blogging seemed to presage. The Columbia Journalism Review began regular coverage of blogs and blogging. Anthologies of blog pieces reached print, and blogging personalities began appearing on radio and television. In the summer of 2004, both (America's Democratic and Republican) parties' conventions credentialed bloggers, and blogs became a standard part of the publicity arsenal. Mainstream television programs, such as Chris Matthews' Hardball, formed their own blogs. Merriam-Webster's Dictionary declared "blog" as the word of the year in 2004. (Wikinews)

Blogs were among the driving forces behind the "Rathergate" scandal. To wit: (television journalist) Dan Rather presented documents (on the CBS show 60 Minutes) that conflicted with accepted accounts of President Bush's military service record. Conservative bloggers declared the documents to be forgeries and presented arguments in support of that view, and CBS apologized for what it said were inadequate reporting techniques. (See Little Green Footballs.) Many bloggers view this scandal as the advent of blogs' acceptance by the mass media, both as a source of news and opinion and as means of applying political pressure.

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), and Ana Marie Cox (Wonkette). Hugh Hewitt is an example of a media personality who has moved in the other direction, adding to his reach in "old media" by being an influential blogger.

In the United Kingdom, The Guardian newspaper launched a redesign in September 2005, which included a daily digest of blogs on page 2.

In January 2005, Fortune magazine listed eight bloggers that business people "could not ignore": Peter Rojas, Xeni Jardin, Ben Trott, Mena Trott, Jonathan Schwartz, Jason Goldman, Robert Scoble, and Jason Calacanis. [4]

Blogging and the traditional

Many bloggers support the Open Source movement. The free speech nature of its technology has helped blogging to have a social impact. Blogging makes it easy for employees to irritate their bosses, and a number have been fired. (See Heather Armstrong, Mark Jen and Jessica Cutler.)

Open Source Politics, or the ability of people to participate more directly in politics, is reframing terms of debate (see George Lakoff). Many bloggers differentiate themselves from the mainstream media, while others are members of that media working through a different channel. Some institutions see blogging as a means of "getting around the filter" and pushing messages directly to the public. Some critics worry that bloggers respect neither intellectual property nor the role of the mass media in presenting society with credible news.

Bloggers' credibility problem, however, can be an advantage for the bloggers and for the mainstream journalists who take an interest in them. News organizations are sometimes reluctant to tell stories that will upset important people. But when bloggers or activists make sensational claims, then they become stories themselves, and journalists can use them as cover for reporting the underlying scandals.

Blogs have been seen as archives of human thought. They can provide useful insights to aid in dealing with humanity's psychological problems (such as depression and addiction). And they can also be used to solve crimes. (In 2005, Simon Ng posted a blog entry which identified his murderer.)

Blogs have also had an influence on minority languages, bringing together scattered speakers and learners; this is particularly so with Scottish Gaelic blogs, whose creators can be found as far away from traditional Gaelic areas as Kazakhstan and Alaska. [5] Blogs are also used regularly by Welsh language activists. Minority language publishing (which may lack economic feasibility) can find its audience through inexpensive blogging.

How blogs are made

Blogging software — such as Nucleus CMS, Movable Type, Blojsom, iBlog, Drupal, b2evolution, boastMachine, Antville, Serendipity and WordPress — makes blogs possible. A good program combines a user-friendly interface and format flexibility.

Server-based systems eliminate the need for bloggers to manage the software. With web interfaces, these systems allow travelers to blog from anywhere on the Internet.

A blogroll is a list of links that create a context for a blog. Bloggers with common interests will share a blogroll to help each other increase their visibility on the Internet.

A feedback comment system allows visitors to post comments to individual blog entries. Frequent comments testify to popular blogs, but some bloggers prefer to pre-screen or block comments.

Tools such as Ecto, Elicit and w.bloggar allow users to maintain their Web-hosted blog without the need to be online while composing or editing posts.

The TrackBack feature introduced by Movable Type in 2002 enables multiple blogs to be automatically notified when certain topical or other changes are made to one blog. (bBlog has gone as far as implementing threaded trackbacks on comments and comments on trackbacks.)

Linking between blogs has been critized as complicating search engine page ranking techniques. It has resulted in search engines changing how search results are obtained. [6] [7]

Some Web hosting companies (Tripod), Internet service providers (America Online), and online publications (Salon.com) provide blog creation tools and blog hosting.

Some people program blogs from scratch using ColdFusion, CGI, pure Ruby, Rails, J2EE, JSP, ASP/ASP.NET, PHP, Python or other server side software. Others have created blogs using wiki software, such as the Wikimedia platform.

Types of blogs

Political

When discussed in the media, the term blog is often understood to refer to a political blog. Political blogs take different forms. Some link to news articles and post personal comments. Others write long essays about current political topics.

Noteworthy is the recent trend of political candidates to incorporate blogging in their campaigns. Some candidates do their own blogging, while others, such as US presidential candidates, assign blogging to campaign staff.

Personal

In common speech, the term blog is often used to describe an online diary or journal, such as LiveJournal. The blog format allows inexperienced computer users to make diary entries with ease. People blog poems, prose, illicit thoughts, complaints, daily experiences, and more, often allowing others to contribute. In 2001, mainstream awareness of online diaries increased dramatically.

Online diaries are part of the daily lives of many teenagers and college students. Friends use blogs to communicate with each other.

Cultural

Cultural blogs discuss music, theater, other arts, and popular culture.

Topical

Topical blogs focus on a niche. For example, the Google Blog covers nothing but news about Google.

A blog may fit more than one topical category or may be both topical and general. Blog directories must manage the needs of bloggers, who want to increase readership, and readers, who want relevant search results.

Local blogs are a type of topical blog. Neighborhood reporting is ideal for blogging: Locals are the best witnesses of local events.

Business

The stock market is a popular subject of blogging. Both amateur and professional investors use blogs to share stock tips.

Business blogs are used to promote and defame businesses, to argue economic concepts, to disseminate information, and more.

Science

Scientists have mixed feelings about blogging: while some see it as an excellent new way to disseminate and discuss data, others fear that blogs (and other informal means of publication) could damage the credibility of science by bypassing the peer review system.

Moblog

A Moblog, or mobile blog, consists of content posted to the Internet from a mobile phone (i.e., cellular telephone) or a personal digital assistant (PDA). Moblogs may require special software.

Collaborative

Many blogs are written by more than one person (often about a specific topic). Collaborative blogs can be open to everyone or limited to a group of people. MetaFilter is an example.

Slashdot, whose status as a blog has been debated, has a team of editors who approve and post links to technology news stories throughout the day. Although Slashdot does not refer to itself as a blog, it shares some characteristics with blogs.

Indymedia is an early (1999) example of a collaborative blog (although the term blog wasn't in circulation then). It was created to cover a specific event (the WTO in Seattle) but has since spread around the world.

Blogcritics has roots as a collaborative blog, but now styles itself an online magazine. The site has evolved since its inception in 2002 from an anything-goes group blog to a heavily edited media organization.

Eclectic

Eclectic blogs focus on specific (and unusual) niches and can be individually or collaboratively produced.

Educational

Students can use blogs to record what they learn and teachers can use blogs to record what they teach. For example, a teacher can blog a course - specifying what homework students are required to carry out, including links to Internet resources, and recording day-by-day what is taught. This application has many advantages: (1) a student can quickly catch-up if they miss a class; (2) the teacher can use the blog as a course plan; and (3) the blog serves as an accurate summary of the course that prospective students or new teachers can refer to. Blogging can also be used to record class excursions and to create electronic "scrapbooks" of student life.

Forum

An internet forum is not a blog (technically speaking), but a blog can function as an internet forum. Internet forums typically allow any user to post (into the discussion). Blogs typically limit posting to the blogger or to the blogger and approved others.

The distinction between blogs and forums is sometimes gray. Sites such as Slashdot, Indymedia and Daily Kos combine elements of the two.

Business professionals use Content management systems to enable cooperation when making documents.

Spam

Spam blogs (splogs) are a form of high-pressure advertising. Like spam e-mails, splogs are characterized by bold lettering and outrageous claims. Affiliated splogs often link to each other to increase their Internet presence. (See PageRank.)

Common terms

Blogging, like any human practice, has developed a specialized vocabulary. See List of blogging terms.

References

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External links

Blog software comparison chart by Online Journalism Review, USC Annenberg
Handbook for Bloggers and Cyberdissidents by Reporters Without Borders
Legal Guide for Bloggers by the Electronic Frontier Foundation
"Web of Influence" by Daniel W. Drezner, Henry Farrell from Foreign Policy Magazine