Tell Me Why?

A Blog (originally called a weblog) is a web site which can be personal or corporate in nature where frequent updated publication of content (series of articles or posts) is presented in a reverse chronological order (journal style). The most recent post is found at the top of the page. Each individual entry (articles or posts) is always time-stamped and dated and the older entries are archived, generating a static address for each individual entry that can be found and read weeks, months or years afterwards. There is also a section ( in some blogs) that have a list showing the previous (recent) post for the first 4 or more entries which are listed (in hyperlinks), according to their title in each respective article.

Blogs being accessible through the World Wide Web (internet) facilitate readers to comment and/or have a discussion thread on each individual entry posted. Thereby, allowing the author to have a voice on the web and connect with others of similar interest. Although blogs are accessible online, some blogs can be either public or private in nature. If it is public, then anyone can visit and read/view it over the internet. A private blog on the other hand, is password protected and can only be accessed and viewed by the owner/s and people with the password. Blogs can be set up and maintained by almost anyone with internet access where the author can edit, organize and publish as often as he/she wishes, using a content management system - i.e. a web-based publication system. A blog can have one or more authors. The author of a blog is often called a blogger.

Blogs usually consist of a collection of multiple links that are directed to other websites and blogs forming an interconnected community with other bloggers (blog owners). These links are usually directed to: Blog friends, posts on another blog that supports the blog owners point of view/interest/discussion etc., blogs that visitors/readers will find interesting, blogs that are interesting and regularly visited by the blog owner, posting comments on each others' blogs and so on. This social network (interconnected communities) of blogs is called the blogosphere.

Blog is the shortened term for weblog but occasionally spelled web log. Blog is however widely used because "web log" or "weblog" can also mean a server's log files. Therefore "blog" being an alternative name for web log seems less likely to cause any confusion.

A typical blog content is primarily textual in nature but may use a combination of text, images, embedded video (e.g. from Youtube.com and Googlevideo.com) and hypertext links which are linked to other blogs or websites relating to that article being published. There are other types of blogs that focus on; audio which are called podcasting, photographs which are called photoblog and videos which are called vlog. There are also mobile blogs which are called Moblogs.

Blogs, being dynamic in nature (unlike static Web pages) sometime provide information to the world faster than traditional media, depending on the type and purpose of the blog (e.g. a news blog). The reason for such swiftness generally has to do with the fact that blogs don’t need the procedure of traditional media of going through a publisher and/or editor to be reviewed and approved before publication. To no surprise blogs are even used by professional and amateur journalists alike to publish breaking headlines news.

A blog can be of a personal or corporate nature. Some major corporations’ web sites contain blogs which can be public or private. These corporate blogs allow an employee to post their thoughts, ideas, company news, talk about coming plans or events for the company and so forth - a kind of a public relation venue to interact, promote and receive feedback with clients and prospective clients in an interactive format. Personal blogs cover a variety of topics such as; day-to-day experiences, poems, prose, complaints, illicit thoughts, philosophical reflections, personal reflections or opinions, mini-essays, commentaries on social or political issues, topics related to ones work and/or expertise, news articles of other sites that are of interest to the user, news about a company/event/person/idea, a personal online diary (similar in content to what is found in a traditional diary book or journal), photos, poetry, hobbies, education, food, project updates, literary work (fiction) etc. Blogs are also increasingly been used in conjunction with traditional online news media e.g. cable news channel and online newspaper sites.

The content and purpose of blogs varies greatly and as such, there are different varieties of blogs that are categorized based on its content topic. As a result of this, blogs can fall into categories such as; Art and Culture, Literature, Comics, Books/Movie Review, Computers, Education, Entertainment, Health & Medicine, Music, Religion and Spirituality, Science & Technology, Gaming, Gadgets & Electronics, Pets, Nature, Politics and Food just to name a few.

Most blogs also use a content distribution tool to syndicate their content giving the author the ability to widely distribute their writings to readers who can subscribe using RSS feed (Really Simple Syndication). This then allows readers (subscribers) to keep up-to-date with the latest headlines (posts) from all blogs or websites having the RSS feed icon without visiting each individual blog or site, using a RSS feed reader (e.g. My Yahoo). The Mozilla Firefox browser shows when an RSS feed icon is presented on a blog webpage which is indicated by a small orange square with ripple waves. This icon can also be found on some blog site at the left or right column or the at the bottom of a blog which is accompanied by feed buttons to subscribe.

Related Articles:
From my other site
The Definition and Purpose of a Blog: What is a Blog?
The History of Blog - Blog Evolution

Labels: Blog, Internet