What is Blogging?
A blog, or weblog, is a journal published on the internet, containing regularly updated content. Articles, or “entries” as they are called, are archived according to the date on which they were published. Older blogs boast archives of impressive magnitude. The topics covered by blogs are as diverse as the people who create them. There are millions of blogs on the internet. To get an idea of the overwhelming amount of blogs, visit Technorati.com.
Why is blogging so popular?
The booming popularity of blogs and the citizen journalism that fuels them can be attributed to several things, but an obvious reason is that it is just so easy to start blogging. Stuart Brown, writer for the popular tech blog Modern Life, says this of blogging:
The barriers to entry normally associated with the press are effectively gone – and passionate folk now have near absolute free reign to write whatever and however they please.
The rapid developments in available computer equipment and software technologies offer millions of people regular and fast access to the internet daily. Internet users very soon realised that they were not happy to be passive consumers of digital information. The doctrine of so-called “Web 2.0” is to enable and encourage user-generated media. Many web developers became aware of the new demands of users and have jumped at the opportunity to create platforms for internet users to express themselves online.
Platforms for blogging
A big part of this media revolution has been the rise in availability of internet-based blogging software. Social networks like MySpace allow for basic blogging while services such as Blogger.com offer more features. Serious bloggers usually prefer to have full control over the blogging technology they use by installing blogging software on a server and hosting the blog on their own domain name.