Weblogs

blog, v.

To write or maintain a weblog. Also: to read or browse through weblogs, esp. habitually.

weblog, n.

A frequently updated web site consisting of personal observations, excerpts from other sources, etc., typically run by a single person, and usually with hyperlinks to other sites; an online journal or diary.

Oxford English Dictionary Online. Draft entry, March 2003.


Description

Blogs are usually updated regularly using software that allows people with little or no technical background to post to and maintain the blog.

Postings are typically arranged in chronological order with the most recent additions featured most prominantly. They also can be organized in categories.

Generally there is one or few persons as main authors. Comments can be posted from the public.

Possibly the most common type of blog is the personal diary.

Additional features include: notification new of postings/comments, integration with email, searchability, syndication, trackback.


History

Until 1996 weblogs simply pointed to new Web sites as they came online (Tim Berners-Lee, Marc Andreessen)

1996/97 Weblogs as a personal, taylor-made mix of links and commentary emerge. Scripting News among the first (still alive): http://www.scripting.com/

In 1999 several free or inexpensive weblogging services were introduced (Pitas, Livejournal, Blogger, UserLand). As using these systems requires little technical knowledge, the practice suddenly became much more accessible. This resulted in a spectacular growth in the number of weblogs.

There were around a thousand weblogs in mid-2000.


Pew Internet & American Life Project Jan 2005 (http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/144/report_display.asp)

pew.jpg

- 27% of internet users in US say they read blogs, a 58% jump from the 17% reported blog readers last February
- 7% of the 120 million U.S. adults who use the internet say they have created a blog or web-based diary, ie. 8 million people.
- 12% of internet users have posted comments or other material on blogs. That represents more than 14 million people
- 6 million US Americans get news and information fed to them through RSS aggregators
- total of 32 million blog readers in the US
- 62% of online US Americans do not know what a blog is


Weblogging Tools

  • Moveable Type (http://www.moveabletype.org/). Stanford has acquired a license for Moveable Type, provided for installation (not supported) by ITSS.

  • TypePad (http://www.moveabletype.org/), based on Movable Type is a fee service, but offers a 30-day free trial, if you wish to explore their tools. It is a technically quite sophisticated and feature-rich interface.

  • Blogger (http://www.blogger.com/start)will allow you to host your blog for free. You need to create a Blogger account and a blog they'll host for free.

  • LiveJournal (http://www.livejournal.com/) is built on open source software. Joining the site is free. For a fee users can choose to upgrade their accounts for extra features.

  • Bubbler (http://www.bubbler.com/)
    The Bubbler client updates text and pages in real time. Bubbler blog authors can post files of any type, including digital photographs, movies, audio, and other multimedia assets as well as business documents like spreadsheets, text documents, and presentations. Bubbler has a group model that provides a team collaboration space. The Bubbler hosted service is launching as a free public beta and a Bubbler client for MacOSX and Windows are available.


RSS (Real Simple Syndication) Tools


References

Weblogs in a nutshell: http://www.osmond-riba.org/lis/nutshell.htm
Perseus Research on Blogs: http://www.perseus.com/blogsurvey/
Annotated Bibliography on Blogs: http://blog-bib.blogspot.com/

Posted by cengel at March 02, 2005