What is a Blog
by Dan Kinchen

The term “blog” is a contraction of “weblog” and was coined by Jorn Barger on December 17, 1997. The short form, “blog”, was coined by Peter Merholz, who jokingly broke the word weblog in the phrase we blog in the sidebar of his blog Peterme.com in April or May 1999. This was quickly adopted as both a noun and verb (”to blog”, meaning “to edit one’s weblog or to post to one’s weblog”).

A more simplistic modern day definition of Blog would be;

Definition: Blog
A Blog is a digital journal that is frequently updated and intended for general public consumption and displayed in reverse chronological order.

Types of blogs

There are various types of blogs, and each differs in the way content is delivered or written.

• Media
  • vlog: a blog of videos
  • linklog: a blog of links
  • photolog: a blog of photos
• Device: Blogs can also be defined by which type of device is used to compose it. A blog written by a mobile device like a mobile phone or PDA is called a moblog.
• Genre: Some blogs focus on a particular subject such as political blogs, travel blogs, legal blogs or product blogs.

A common blog structure

A blog entry typically consists of the following:

• Title: the main title or headline of the post
• Body: the main content of the post
• Permalink: the url of the full, individual article
• Post Date: date and time the post was published
• Comments: remarks made by others in regards to that particular post
• Categories (or Tags): a collection of related posts sharing a common attribute
• Trackbacks and or pingback: links to other sites that refer to the entry

How do I create a blog?

Most of the blogs that you see on internet currently are web applications (see definition below) or in other words “a website that you can update yourself without the need of a web developer. These applications will help you to create, modify, delete and organize your website content. They can also help you to promote or market your site and have the ability to plug-in other modules of code written by web developers that will modify your application.

Definition: Web Application
In software engineering, a web application is an application delivered to users from a web server over a network such as the World Wide Web or an intranet. Web applications are popular due to the ubiquity of the web browser as a client, sometimes called a thin client. The ability to update and maintain web applications without distributing and installing software on potentially thousands of client computers is a key reason for their popularity.

With these web interfaces, these systems allow travelers to blog from anywhere on the internet, and allow users to create blogs without having to maintain their own server. Such systems allow users to work with tools such as Ecto, Elicit and Blogger which allow users to maintain their Web-hosted blog without the need to be online while composing or editing posts. Blog creation tools and blog hosting are also provided by some Web hosting companies, Internet service providers, online publications and internet portals. Some advanced users have developed custom blogging systems from scratch using server-side software, and often implement membership management and password protected areas. Others have created a mix of a blog and wiki, called a bliki. Also, blogs can be regular static web pages updated frequently by a web developer.

Hosted blog providers;

• Blogger.com: Free, automated weblog publishing tool that sends updates to a site via FTP.
• LiveJournal.com: A place where you can share your thoughts with the world.
• TypePad.com: The premier blogging service for professionals and small business.

Self-Hosted

• MovableType.org: Publishing Platform for Business Blogs and Professionals.
• TextPattern.com: A flexible, elegant, easy-to-use content management system for all kinds of websites, even weblogs.
• WordPress.org: A semantic personal publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability.