You may be one of the millions of bloggers out there at the moment, however, there are still lots of people who haven’t a clue what this is or have heard of it but never really understood it. In a nutshell, a blog is a web log, typically referred to as an online journal or diary containing a persons thoughts or interesting (not always) articles. This article explains what a blog is and why it has become so popular and one the fastest growing types of website…

Lets start with a definition. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, describes a blog as “A weblog, which is usually shortened to blog, is a type of website where entries are made (such as in a journal or diary), displayed in a reverse chronological order.”

Blogging has become extremely popular with one in four internet users currently writing blogs (according to a recent survey by MSN). A blog can take many forms from a journal of everyday thoughts, news related, or specialist subjects to provoke discussions. Blogging has developed into a past-time for many internet users and gives the freedom for people to express their views to the world.

The online journal writing community began back in 1994 and had continued to develop over the years until 2004 when blogging became much more mainstream. Some blogs have developed into forums or tools used by professionals.

Why do people write blogs?

Most users will describe their blogs as a great way to keep fresh. Writing something in a blog makes you think more and more about the subject you are actually writing about. It’s very motivating. The Internet has over 1 billion users and so having a voice used to be much more difficult. Anyone can setup a blog in minutes and start writing entries using any of the free blogging websites.

30 minutes a day is all it takes to update a blog. Blogging can be very rewarding, whether you maintain a blog for fun or to promote yourself. It’s a good feeling to see discussions starting as a result of your blog and you soon make new friends and influence people. It gives the opportunity for anyone (educated and non-educated) to publish articles without limitations from editors.

Where do you get a blog?

There are lots of free blogging websites out there. One of the most popular is Blogger. Blogger is provided by Google and is easy and free to setup. WordPress is another free blogging website with many features. Each blogging website provider offers various features so when choosing one it’s important to compare the features of all.

How do people find your blog?

The majority of blogs are found using search engines. There are specialist blog search engines which only search blogs, based on topics, themes or recently updated content. Once you have found an interesting blog you can then save it to your favourites or bookmarks and in some cases be notified when new blogs are added.

The number of regular bloggers is increasing all the time and the future of blogging is set to incorporate more features and types of media. These include video blogs (vlogs), photo blogs (photoblogs), and ones which contain links (linklogs).

If you’re interested in keeping a blog or are simply curious about how it all works:

Give it a try. It’s free…

Odds & Sods