What is a blog - Quick History

What is a blog........a quick history

Web logs (aka "blogs" to spare all us fast talkers and slow
typers that extra syllable) have been around since Tim
Berners-Lee was a pup.

Berners-Lee, in fact, is given credit for the first Web log with
his World Wide Web News pages. Starting in January 1992, Tim BL
kept the cognoscenti up-to-date with what was happening with the
W3 project with a periodically updated log, including hypertext
links to new content available on the still-a-borning Web.


Was WWW News an online newsletter or blog?

Hard to say, but because Tim BL was keeping it, the bloggers tend
to point to his work as the granddaddy of blogging.


When the masses first began appearing on the Web, the
self-indulgent and/or information-packed Web site was the in thing.
Some who had more Webmaster skills than others (or more
time and patience) kept Web logs, but web logging was a tedious
process, needing some technical skills, and was not for the
newbies.


In the early 2000's , several purveyors have developed
software to make web logging easy. Rough estimates are that there
are hundreds of thousands of Web logs, either on user sites or
batched together on sites that provide blogging services.


Articles about Weblogs began appearing in mainstream publications
like the Chicago Tribune and the NYT (not to mention Wired and
Salon) in the late 1990's, when having a Web log became a
(relatively) easy thing to do and the latest in thing.


Web logs come in several types:

- the personal diary/musings of someone who may or may not be
entertaining.

- a collection of links to other Web content with commentary -
not necessarily a "personal musings" log.

- a collection of musings on a given subject with a
give-and-take to-and-fro with the readers.

- a collection of links to content on a given subject, with or
without commentary. The Berners-Lee blog was this type.

Is an online newsletter with periodically-updated content a Weblog?

The line between a "publication" that is a personal hobby
and a blog is a blurry one. Usually the only difference is that
the blog has date-stamped entries and periodic archiving while a
hobby publication may actually have "issues" archived.



Summary:

Blogs come in all sizes and shapes. Some are useful. Some are
self-indulgent. Some are both. Some are dreary. Some are smug and
self-congratulatory.

- Guess you could say that blogs are like Web sites in that manner, eh?

- Some even come with flashy tiki lamps and pictures and poems.

- Some are very useful research and business marketing tools

- Some blogs are chock full of information


Is that like, a bog with a log in it?

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