What is a Blog? by Daniel 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.
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Media
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vlog: a blog of videos
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linklog: a blog of links
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photolog: a blog of photos
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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.
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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:
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Title: the main title or headline of the post
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Body: the main content of the post
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Permalink: the url of the full, individual article
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Post Date: date and time the post was published
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Comments: remarks made by others in regards to that particular post
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Categories (or Tags): a collection of related posts sharing a common
attribute
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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;
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Blogger.com: Free, automated weblog
publishing tool that sends updates to a site via FTP.
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LiveJournal.com: A place where you
can share your thoughts with the world.
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TypePad.com: The premier blogging service
for professionals and small business.
Self-Hosted
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MovableType.org: Publishing
Platform for Business Blogs and Professionals.
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TextPattern.com: A flexible,
elegant, easy-to-use content management system for all kinds of websites, even
weblogs.
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WordPress.org: A semantic personal
publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability.
About the Author
Dan Kinchen owns One
Step Solutions Corp (a
website design and development company) in Orlando, Florida and runs a
web site to show fellow web entrepreneurs how to
make money blogging.
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