What is a blog?

A simple overview of blogging and its place in the internet.

Blogging first started in the late 90s and recently blogs have been springing up everywhere. Its like every other website is a blog or includes a blog. With so many blogs out there, what is a blog or blogging?

Like the term 'web2.0',the exact definition of blogging is arguable, but generally it goes...

Wikipedia.org:
Blog is a type of website that is updated periodically with content display in chronological order; the newest content at the top, the oldest at the bottom.

You could also add that most blogs are updated from several times a day to once or twice a week. A blog usually focus on one area of interest from ultra technical to personal ramblings in forms text, picture, and/or videos. There are special blogs where the content is entirely pictures (photoblog) or videos (vblog).

Another way to looks at blogs in to compare it with regular websites. Both has new contents periodically and they can be display more or less in the same way. What is different between the two is probably the content and how its presented. When covering the same topic, as an example news or reviews, a website will be mostly informative giving you all the facts. On the other hand, the news/reviews on the blog will be or should be unique with a personal touch or expressing a particular point of view rather than just giving you the facts. In other words, if you think of a newspaper, a website would be similar to an article whereas a blog is closer to an editorials.

So, why blog? Well, different people blog for different reason. Some use blogging to keep in touch with friends and families, others write about their interest, opinions etc. Lately blogs has also been involved in personal branding and a source of income.

If blogging intrigues you or you have a particular area of interest, why not give blogging a try?