What is a Blog? What is Blogging?
Blog FAQ: The Basics of Blogging Explained
Welcome to Pseudorant and the start of another multipart guide. Today I am going to be explaining what a Blog is!
I’m guessing that anyone reading this is already familiar with what a blog is, but for those who are not I will outline the details to help you better understand this phenomenon that is taking place on the internet.
What is a Blog?
A blog is traditionally thought of as a web based journal or diary. An author of a blog will make frequent updates of different posts of information. These entries can consist of text based information, pictures, audio, video and various other web mediums. Different types of media may be used to help readers get the most out of a blog post.
The word Blog is short for “Web Log” which provides a good description of a blogs main purpose, which is logging data on a website. While this is commonly what blogs are used for there have been many adaptations of the way blogs are implemented on different websites through out the years.
Most blogs are maintained by individuals as a hobby or news platform, to quickly relay information to the masses. This can consist or journal entries about what a user did with their day, to news articles about current events that are happening around the world.
There are literally millions of blogs covering almost any topic you can think of. It is hard to give an exact number on the amount of blogs on the internet because they are so easy to setup, that there are new ones created every couple of minutes. Estimates from some sites in early 2008 put the number at anywhere between 125,000,000 and 200+ million blogs, trying to also account for blogs which are published in foreign languages like Chinese.
What is Blogging?
Blogging is the act of publishing articles and information onto a blog. Once a user has a blog setup they can post articles about anything that is on their mind for others to read. This would be known as blogging.
Most blogs will usually pick a topic or genre to focus their articles on. This will usually be a topic of interest to the author so they can present as much useful information on the subject as possible.
Bloggers may not be specialists in their field, but their writing skills allow them to convey their ideas in a way that others can understand. This allows the author to present topics to readers that may normally be confusing when they are found in technical articles or websites.
You may also hear people refer to blogging as, “needing to blog”. This is an instance of “blog” being used as a verb to describe the act of blogging, and not a web log itself.
The History of Blogging
This history of blogging is also hard to pin down because of the nature of the technology surrounding blogs. Some of the earliest forms of blogs were simply websites that contained content in the form of a journal that was updated manually on a frequent basis. Sites that could be considered some of the first blogs on the internet began to originate in the early to mid 90’s.
Around 1998 the idea was starting to catch on and some websites started offering journal and diary hosting services which would be considered some of the first easy to use online blogs. Through these sites users could post their daily entries with a content management system that allowed users to easily post frequently updated articles.
It was around this same time that websites started to implement different types of “comment” systems. These comment systems allowed readers of an author’s blog to post feedback and opinions about the author’s articles. The comment system is considered one of the most important features of all modern day blogs.
By the year 2000 blogs had grown in popularity and had become very accessible to users through the advent of blogging sites and blog publishing software. Publishing software would allow users to host blogs on their own domains with an easy to use content management system.
From 2000 - 2008 there have been many instances of blogs affecting political news and mainstream media. Because of the accessibility that blogs have put at peoples finger tips, there is now way for people to voice their opinions and ideas without having to worry about being censored by governments and corporations.
However, this idea has led to many political issues and trials for authors around the world based on government rulings that where made in countries like China, Egypt, Singapore and many others.
Different types of Blogs
There are many different types of blogs out there today. As mentioned before most are personal journals maintained by users. But because of the easy access that blogs provide, numerous websites have utilized the technology in many different ways.
It is not uncommon to see blogs that are maintained by political figures and celebrities. You can also find blogs that are based on different genres like travel, food, home and garden, health, computers, technology, etc.
There are even new types of blogs that specialize in different forms of media like video or audio to produce content for their readers.
One interesting type of blog that has sprung up in the past few years is the “monetized” blog which is used to generate income for the author. These blogs focus mainly on driving traffic to generate advertising revenue for the authors.
All these different types of blogs are available to users. The reader would just need to decide what subject they are looking for and it could be found through most any search engine out there, including numerous blog search engines that specialize in only searching content published by blogs.
Sites for Blogging
There are many sites out there that will let you sign up for a free blog if you are interested in getting started. These sites are best setup to accommodate authors that are interested in maintaining a journal or diary type blog.
Most authors feel that if you are going to pursue a commercialized blog with a more professional feel, that it is best to start by downloading blog publishing software and getting your own domain name to establish an online identity.
Three of the most popular blog sites out there are Blogger, Live Journal, and WordPress
Blog Publishing Software
As I mentioned before most authors that intend to create a commercial blog will usually look into purchasing a domain name which they can host their blog on.
To do this the author needs to setup blog publishing software. Blog publishing software is a type of content management system that allows the author to quickly and easily maintain content on their website.
It is similar to using a blogging service in the respect that the author can access this software from their domain, and make updates to their blog from anywhere they can access the internet.
Most of the 646-204 and 70-620 professionals mention in their bog that had they done 220-601 or even 70-649, they would have had an edge over their SY0-101 counterparts.
There are lots of popular blog publishing programs available with the most noted being “WordPress”. WordPress maintains it’s popularity because the open source platform it was built on allows users to constantly add to the program and improve it.
Two other popular publishing programs are “Movable Type” and “Grey Matter.
There are numerous other resources out there for blog hosting services and publishing software. Always feel free to try out new services to see which ones you like the best. The ones listed here are a brief example of popular programs and services that authors currently use.
Overview
At this point you should have a better understanding of what a blog is, the history surrounding the blogging phenomenon, and the different ways in which users can implement blogs on their websites.
As always please feel free to leave any questions or comments you may have about the article. I am always interested to hear peoples feedback, so I can continue to improve the site.
Thanks for visiting Pseudorant!
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