Blogging: A Brief History and Overview
Ryan Lange, Michigan State University
Abstract
This article includes a brief overview of blogging, including a discussion of definitional issues and the history of the format.
In broad terms, a blog is commonly thought of as an online journal, though they can range from intimate personal diaries to more journalistic newsletters. Some blogs focus on a narrow selection of topics of interest to the author, while other blogs cover a much wider range of topics.
A Brief History of Blogging
The term “weblog” was created by Jorn Barger in 1997, though what is commonly understood as blogging began as early as 1996 with Dave Winer’s web site intended for use in the 24 Hours of Democracy project. The shortened term “blog” was coined by Peter Merholz in early 1999 when he announced he would pronounce it “we blog.” Blogging started to gain mainstream attention in 2001 when political blogs such as Jerome Armstrong’s MyDD and Andrew Sullivan’s AndrewSullivan.com gained large followings of Internet users. The tragic events of September 11th, 2001 encouraged the creation of numerous “warblogs,” which dealt with America’s reaction to terrorism around the world.
Bloggers have gradually gained more power to bring events to the attention of the traditional media, such as controversial comments made by Trent Lott at a birthday party for Strom Thurmond. A more recent example of bloggers challenging the traditional media came when bloggers discredited a news story on 60 Minutes that used forged documents to attempt to damage President Bush’s military service record. The popularity of blogs is steadily increasing: according to a 2005 study, over a quarter of U.S. Internet users say they are blog readers, while a little under ten percent of U.S. Internet users are blog authors.
Who are bloggers?
According to a 2004 survey done about blogging by the Pew Internet and American Life project, the average blogger is primarily an upper-middle class male under the age of 30 with high-speed Internet access who has been online for more than six years. However, a more demographically diverse group of people is becoming involved in blogging, mirroring the overall trends in Internet usage. Also, while blogs were once only the domain of those who were familiar with HTML, today a wide variety of user-friendly tools are available to allow even the most technologically inexperienced to blog. Many bloggers are young adults who use the Internet as a means of personal expression. Blogging sites such as LiveJournal.com are dominated by young people who use blogs to network with their peers and freely express themselves.
How is a blog different from an ordinary web site?
Blogs have several structural characteristics that distinguish them from traditional personal “home pages.” A blog site shows the most recent entries at the top of the page to allow readers to see the latest blog entry first. Blog entries also tend to incorporate hyperlinks to other blogs or web sites, allowing readers to easily click on and read the primary sources for themselves. A sidebar may feature links to other bloggers or favorite sites, allowing bloggers to elaborate on their interests. These links to other blogs are called “blogrolls”, and can either display links to other sites or in some cases can display the actual content of recent blog entries in a scrollable column. This process of syndication is accomplished by a protocol known as RSS and is an increasingly popular method of linking multiple blogs or other forms of content into an easily browsed interface.
The most interesting thing about blogging to many people is the interactivity it enables between a writer and her audience. Comments can be left on blog posts by readers, sometimes resulting in lengthy discussions of topics ranging from the mundane to the highly technical. Blogs can also feature “permalinks”, which create a permanent reference point for the entry so that it can be linked to indefinitely by other interested readers. A related technology is called “trackback”. Trackbacks use web technology to track when another web site links to a blog entry.. Permalinks, trackbacks and blog syndication via RSS allows for the creation of blog communities. The broad world of blogs is often referred to as the “blogosphere” because of this nested relationship that connects blogs. Recently, blogs have also begun featuring the ability to “tag” entries, which categorizes the entry and allows for Internet content aggregators to sort it into presentations about specific topics.