What is a Blog

What is a Blog?

A Blog is a contraction of the term ‘Web Log’. A log, as we all know, is the written record of events/messages in a chronological order. It is like a journal or diary wherein people record events, experiences and observations. Therefore, we can describe a “blog” as a journal, which is available on the web. Technically, a blog can be defined as the chronological arrangement of a collection of text, data, images and other media objects recorded and retrievable through a web browser. Originally, blogs started out as static websites but over the years they gradually evolved to include many advanced features making them much more conversational and interactive in nature.

History of Blog?

Although digital communities existed before the blogs in the form of Usenet, Internet forums, email lists and Bulletin Board systems, Justin Hall, who began his blog, Justin’s Home page in January 1994, is credited as the first blogger. Justin’s Home Page, which later became Links from the underground, had links and reviews of websites in existence at that time. In 1996 Justin Hall began writing an online journal, which had dated entries, each entry linked through an index. The term weblog was coined and first used by Jorn Barger in 1997. In 1999, Peter Merholz, playing with the term used ‘We Blog’ on his blog and the term blog stuck. Most early blogs were websites, which were being manually updated by the person maintaining the blog and knowledge of web technologies was essential if someone wanted to blog. However the developments in technology made it feasible for the non-technical people also to blog and that was the turning point in the history of Blogs. Consider this, in the beginning of 1999; there were only 23 blogs as recorded by Jesse James Garrett, editor of Infosift. Jesse James forwarded this list to Cameron Barrett, who included the list on the sidebar of his blog “Camworld.org”. Soon he started receiving URLs of similar sites maintained by other people. Suddenly a community started forming around these blogs, since it was easy to read all the blogs on his list. Subsequently, more and more people started their own blogs and the numbers grew rapidly. In Jul 1999, Pitas launched the ‘build your own weblog’ tool, followed by Pyra Labs releasing Blogger in Aug 1999. Blogger caught the imagination of people and got blogging closer to the mainstream Internet users. The rapid growth turned into an explosion and blogging as a phenomenon had taken off. Today there are more than 150 million blogs in existence. Figure 1.2 shows the statistics of US blog readers from 2008- 2014.

Starting out as just links to other pages or personal diaries, blogs today have evolved to facilitate inclusion of media-rich content, scripts and also many interactive features to allow a two-way communication between the blogger and the reader.

Classification of Blog

Since blogs have been used in every conceivable way over the years and have covered almost all topics under the sun it is very difficult to categorize each one of them by type, therefore it’s best to classify them instead. Blogs can be classified in one of the following ways: - By Genre: Blogs that focus on a particular niche or subject are grouped under this category. Some examples are: Political Blogs, Celebrity Blogs, Art Blogs, Music Blogs, Sports Blogs or Travel Blogs etc. By Media Type: Blogs can contain any kind of content other than simple text in its post, like photographs, videos, audio files or even games and therefore they can be grouped according to the specific media content present in the blogs. Using this form of classification, a blog that contains primarily videos is called a “Vlog”, blog that contains photos is called a “Photolog” and a blog containing links to other web pages is called a “Linklog”. By Status of Publisher: Here the word “publisher” refers to the blogger. Therefore blogs can be grouped according to its purpose as defined by the blogger as “Personal Blogs”,  “ Business Blogs”,  “ Corporate / Organizational Blogs” etc.

Who Can Blog

Well, anyone can start a blog at anytime. However, the idea is not just to start a blog and leave it at that but to be able to sustain it, and be read too. To become a serious blogger, there are certain things that one needs to know before a blog is started. Blogging involves extensive writing and so be sure that you have enough time to spare to be able to keep up with regular postings on your blog. You can write anything that fancies your imagination or interests. Usually blogs are written in an informal tone, especially if they are personal blogs, however, if they are for business or official purposes, then the writing has to be of a higher quality and sound professional. The quality of the content on your blogs will determine the kind of traffic it will draw. Knowledge and passion for writing are both important factors. It is always better to write about topics that you have knowledge of and are passionate about as it is reflected in your writing. Even the most seasoned writers find it difficult to write on topics that they have no knowledge about. Be passionate about writing if you want it to be a long haul, otherwise you will find yourself slipping away after a few months.

Maintaining a blog is a long-term activity that can be quite time consuming. To be a successful blogger requires a lot of consistency, hard work and commitment on your part. Many blogs that have been started in full earnest fall by the wayside just because people cannot stick to the schedules they have set for themselves.  Writing new articles or posts requires a lot of research to be done unless of course, you are a specialist in your field and know exactly what you are writing about. A lot of time is also required to promote your blog and individual posts in order to get traffic. But, all said and done, just about anyone can start a blog and there is no special qualification or experience needed.

Why do People Read/Write blogs?

As we pointed out earlier, the simplistic features of a blog made it easier for individuals to start blogging and they did so for any number of reasons, be it as an extension of their passion / hobby, an outlet for expression of thought, to share information, opinions and knowledge or maybe just for fun. However, the underlying reason for reading or writing blogs remained the same: to be a part of a community. A place where they could have a sense of belonging, could gain respect from others as individuals, could express their thoughts without the fear of being judged, could contribute and where their voice would be heard.

This aspect of human nature evolves from real life, wherein people tend to form groups or communities based on the similarities of their caste, religion, ethnic backgrounds, or common interests etc. Humans being social in nature, have an innate desire to find other people that they can relate to and thereafter form a network of sorts from which they can gather all kinds of information and feedback relating to the real world. Therefore, if a person had to buy a product, he/ she would rely on the direct feedback of the people within his/her network of friends or colleagues instead of relying on information given by sales persons or evangelists.

Since blogs are written and maintained mostly by individuals for their personal reasons or passions, it is much easier to believe in the content as being honest and sincere in nature rather than believing in a celebrity endorsement or a magazine review for that matter.

Of course, there are many other reasons for people to blog, which includes making money, self-promotion, connecting with their fans, gaining popularity or becoming famous or simply because they love to write. Whatever the reason may be, at the heart of it all, it is getting into or keeping in touch with a community. Blogs allow this in a very simplistic and discrete manner and that is why they have such a large following.

How does a blog work?

So far you have been reading about creating and writing blogs, but have you wondered about how this is made possible? What are the elements that go into the whole process of blogging? Well, there are three distinct elements that are involved in the process of blogging, which are: Blogging Client, Blogging Platform and Blogging Host.

Blogging Client: The Blogging client is an application that allows the blogger to post content and edit it with the help of a text editor. The text editor may also have some add-on features that allow the addition of pictures, photos or videos to their posts. Here, the blogger does not have to bother about creating web pages in HTML, as everything is included in the application. In other words, it is an application that allows the blogger to post, edit, format and perform a variety of functions for a blog without launching a browser.

There are two types of Blogging Clients available, one where you need to post content online, e.g. Blogger.com and two where you can post content offline, e.g. Flock, Windows Live Writer, Drivel, WBlogger and many more. An offline blogging client is something similar to an email client like Outlook Express.

Blogging Platform: Behind the blogging client is the software, which contains the code that helps you perform all the tasks explained above. It can be called the backend of the blogging client. The Blogging platform is hosted on a server along with the add-ons that include the software languages like PHP, ASP etc used for creation of the client as well as the database like MySQL that stores all the content that is created with the help of the client. The code helps in creation and the presentation of the blog as well.  According to PC world, the top five Blogging Platforms are Google Blogger, Wordpress, Six Apart Typepad, Tripod and Squarespace.

Blogging Host: Every site on the Internet needs to be hosted on a web server. Unless a page or a website is uploaded on a web Server it is not available online. A Web Host is the entity that offers the web space and web server to publish and deliver web pages. Similarly, a Blog host is the host or a server that goes one step further and installs the blogging platform and relevant add-ons. With a Blog host, a blogger is freed from the task of installing, configuring and maintaining the modules that make up the back-end of the blog. For example, Google Blogger is a Blog Host available online where anyone can create a blog very easily in three steps and is automatically hosted on the Google server at Blogspot.com.

A blog can always be configured to a new web address (new domain name) or server should you choose to do so at a later date when your blog gets popular and you want to upgrade it to a proper website with a “www” address.