“If you want to spark a lively debate, ask people what a blog is,” said Jeremy Zawodny, a software engineer at Yahoo. The press often uses the phrase “online personal diary” whenever a brief explanation of a blog is needed. This definition isn’t incorrect, but it’s also not entirely accurate.
Diaries are organized chronologically, while blogs are continuously updated, meaning that the most recently edited or updated information appears first. More importantly, this definition overlooks a significant characteristic of blogs. Typically, diaries are personal, private, and, of course, never linked to other diaries. People would face serious trouble if they dared to snoop on someone else’s private thoughts. However, blogs are inherently social, whether set to public (accessible to everyone) or group (restricting access to a select group of people). One of the most telling features that reflects the social nature of blogs is the “blogroll,” located in the sidebar of the website, which lists links to other blogs. In fact, a blogroll serves as a way for authors to categorize their blogs within a specific audience, and it also allows bloggers (individuals who create their own blogs) to connect with one another online.
The term “blog” emerged in 1997 when Jorn Barger, one of the few individuals creating personal websites at that time, referred to his site as a “weblog.” In 1999, another figure, Peter Merholz, playfully broke the term into “we blog.” As a result, “blog” randomly serves as both a noun and a verb. Technically, it is a website where the owner regularly posts information, usually brief writings that contain links to other blogs or websites. Additionally, they can post photos (photoblogs) and videos (vlogs). Each post is contained within an individual archival page, which bloggers still refer to as a permalink. On average, the search engine Technorati records about 50,000 new posts every hour.
Dave Winer, a software engineer who pioneered several technologies for blogging and created what he considers to be the oldest blog (since 1997), believes that the existence of blogs is essential because they represent “the world of each individual.” Blogs contain pure opinions that are unpolished but highly authentic. However, this definition does not account for blogs created by companies, community organizations, or news agencies.
“Initially, I thought this was a way to express opinions to the community; now I see it as a revolutionary communication medium,” said Mena Trott, founder of Six Apart. The company that Mena Trott co-founded with her husband has demonstrated this statement through three main products. Movable Type is the blogging software that has become extremely popular among well-known bloggers. TypePad is a similar service that comes with web hosting. Blogs using these two tools attract an average readership of up to 600 people.
The third product, LiveJournal, is a completely different blogging tool. Sixty percent of LiveJournal users are under 21 years old and women. Posts often recount events from the previous night, discuss “why I’m sad,” or comment on “adults being so picky,” or ask, “did anyone watch King Kong at 8 last night?” and receive responses within minutes. LiveJournal caters to those who feel that email is outdated and want to turn blogging into a “chatting” tool. With this type of communication, the average readership of each blog is about seven people, but this number is typical in the current “personal media” era. At this point, a blog is not a personal page but a space for exchanging and sharing common interests.
According to Mena Trott, blogs essentially represent conversation. The creator and the reader engage in informal discussions, even “rambling” without a clear beginning or end, with topics changing and shifting continuously.
Currently, Technorati reports that a new blog appears every second, and the “blogosphere” is doubling in size every five months. Germans have come to blogging relatively late. Only 1% of personal websites belong to this country, while in Japan it is 41%, 28% in the UK, and 14% in China.
“Just like email accounts, everyone will have a blog within the next five years,” asserts Sabeer Bhatia, who recently founded BlogEverywhere.com, allowing users to attach a blog to any website with just one click. Bhatia is one of the individuals who helped make email as popular as it is today after launching Hotmail, which is now managed by Microsoft.
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