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A weblog, or simply a blog, is a web application which contains periodic, reverse chronologically ordered posts on a common webpage. Such a Web site would typically be accessible to any Internet user. The term "blog" came into common use as a way of avoiding confusion with the term server log.
Blogs run from individual diaries to arms of political campaigns, media programs and corporations, and from one occasional author to having large communities of writers. Some are maintained by single authors, while others have multiple authors. Many weblogs allow visitors to leave public comments, which can lead to a community of readers centered around the blog; others are non-interactive. The totality of weblogs or blog-related websites is usually called the blogosphere.
The format of weblogs varies, from simple bullet lists of hyperlinks, to article summaries with user-provided comments and ratings. Individual weblog entries are almost always date and time-stamped, with the newest post at the top of the page. Because links are so important to weblogs, most blogs have a way of archiving older entries and generating a static address for individual entries; this static link is referred to as a permalink. The latest headlines, with hyperlinks and summaries, are offered in weblogs in the RSS or Atom XML-format, to be read with a feed reader.
A weblog is often run through a content management system or CMS.
- Electronic communities existed before internetworking. For example the AP wire was, in effect, similar to a large chat room where there were "wire fights" and electronic conversations. Another pre-digital electronic community Amateur (or "ham") radio allowed individuals who set up their own broadcast equipment to communicate with others directly. Ham radio also had logs called " glogs" that were personal diaries made using wearable computers in the early 1980s.
- Before blogging became popular, digital communities took many forms, including Usenet, email lists and bulletin boards. In the 1990's Internet forumAn Internet forum also known as a message board or discussion board is a web application that provides for online discussions, and is the modern descendant of the bulletin board systems and existing Usenet news systems that were widespread in the 1980s an software, such as WebX, created running conversations with threads. Many of the terms from weblogging were created in these earlier media. For example, " trollOn the Internet, troll is a slang term used to describe: # A person who makes posts (on newsgroups or other forums) that are solely intended to provoke responses from others, or to cause annoyance or offense. A post that is intended to incite controversy" as a person who disrupts a discussion, dates back to Usenet. "Thread," in reference to consecutive messages, comes from email lists and Usenet as well, and "to post" from electronic bulletin boards, borrowing usage directly from their corkboard predecessors.
Blogging combined the personal web page with tools to make linking to other pages easier, specifically blogrollA blogroll is a collection of links to other weblogs that are found on most weblogs. Various weblog authors have different criteria for including other weblogs on their blogrolls. These range from matters of common interest to frequency of updates and poss and trackbacksTrackBack is a system implemented by many blogging tools, including Movable Type, that allows a blogger to see who has seen the original post and has written another entry concerning it. The system works by sending a 'ping' between the blogs, and therefor, as well as comments. This way, instead of a few people in control of threads on a forum, or anyone able to start threads on a list, there was a moderating effect that was the personality of the weblog's owner.
The term "weblog" was coined by Jorn BargerJorn Barger (born 1953 in Yellow Springs, Ohio) is a United States writer, best known on the Internet as editor of Robot Wisdom an influential early weblog. He coined the term "weblog" to describe the process of "logging the web" as he surfed. One of the in December 1997.
The shorter version, "blog," was coined by Peter MerholzPeter Merholz (born '1972') is a weblogger. According to some, Merholz coined the shorter version of Weblog, " blog," in April or May of 1999 by breaking the word weblog into the phrase "wee' blog" in the sidebar of his weblog. He is currently a partner i who in April or May of 1999 broke the word weblog into the phrase "we blog" in the sidebar of his weblog [2]. This was interpreted as a short form of the noun [3] and also as a verb, to blog, meaning "to edit one's weblog or a post to one's weblog." Usage spread during 1999 and the word was popularized by Pyra 's creation of their weblog service Blogger. As of March 2003, the Oxford English Dictionary included the terms weblog, weblogging and weblogger in their dictionary. [4]
One of the pioneers of the tools that make blogging more than merely websites that scroll is Dave Winer. One of his most important contributions was the creation of servers which weblogs would "ping" to show that they had updated. Blog reading utilities, such as Blogrolling [5], use the aggregated update data to show a user when their favorite blogs have new posts..