What is a Blog?
I know by now, you have heard the term blog. Perhaps you have even started one. If so, you probably can skip over this post; but if the idea is one you've heard of but never have tried doing, then please continue reading.
Terminology
Let's start with the terminology. There are a variety of terms that you'll see floating around when people talk about blogs:• A blog is a journal or newsletter that is updated regularly and is intended for general public consumption. Blogs generally represent the personality of the author of the web site. You can also see this term used as a verb; for example, "I'm going to blog before going to work this morning." When used like this it is the same as blogging.
• Blogging is the activity of updating a blog. Blogging can be done daily, weekly, or monthly using whatever time period the author feels adequate. The most popular blogs are updated frequently, usually daily. The software that is used for updating the blog is usually very simple requiring that people have little or no technical background.
• The Blogger is the person maintains the blog and who does the updating of it.
When blogs first started, bloggers usually wrote about their daily life and activities and that still is taking place today; however, The scope of what people write about has changed tremendously since the early days of blogging.
Bloggers are now changing the way news, information, and opinions are shared.
One of the best discussions of what a blog is and how they are used to share news is Blogs in Plain English found on YouTube.
Who Blogs?
People just like you. Once they have the background and understanding of just how their blog software works, a very small learning curve, blogging becomes a very simple thing to do. Blogging has become for many people a hobby, they do it regularly. In 2008 Technorati reported that there are 900,000 blog posts every 24 hours! While there is some debate over just how rapidly the number of blogs and bloggers are growing, they are growing and today there are more blogs than there ever before. The growth in the number of blogs and the number of people posting to blogs is nothing short of amazing.Why do people want to blog?
I believe people blog because we love to communicate with each other. The internet provides access to people all over the world for sharing ideas and interests. For example, you may find it difficult to find people in your small town who have your interests in the environment but when you make your ideas and thoughts available to people all over the world, one voice can quickly become many. Never before have average people like you or me had the ability or opportunity to reach a global audience so simply and easily.
Examples of Blogs
Boing BoingBoing Boing is a weblog of cultural curiosities and interesting technologies. It's the most popular blog in the world, as ranked by Technorati.com, and won the Lifetime Achievement and Best Group Blog awards at the 2006 Bloggies ceremony.
The Official Google Blog
News about all things Google
TMZ
Entertainment News, Celebrity Gossip and News
eBizMBA maintains a list of the 15 most popular blogs as does Technorati whose list is expanded to the top 100 blogs. I encourage you to take a look at these lists.
I think you'll find that blogs can cover just about any subject you can possibly imagine. It is an enjoyable experience and you will find that you will encounter people and ideas from all over the world.
How to Get Started?
There are a number of blogging services available that are free or low cost. Below is my list, if you find there are others, by all means let me know.• Blogger
• Class Blogmeister
• 21Classes
• Wordpress
