Blogs

BLOGGING

A blog is a word which originated from WEBLOG. A blog is a type of website owned by individuals or large companies. People can make a blog about absolutely anything they wish, they enter a regular entry of their subject. For example big musicians use blogs so their fans can keep track of what they are doing and what events they have coming up, individuals can write about a new games, Cd's, Films (anything) that are coming and review them. When people write a blog, other people reading can leave comments about the subjects. A good word to describe a blog is an online journal.

Blogs date back to around 1990-1997, so blogs have only been around for around 15 years. Blogs are always advancing technology. For example recently something called RSS feeds have come around. This is where you can follow someone's blog. And I am sure that the technology of blogs will be continuing to advance.



Timeline

1990- Internet forum software, created running conversations with "threads." Threads are tipical connections between messages on a virtual "corkboard."

1994- The modern blog evolved from the online diary, where people would keep a running account of their personal lives. Most such writers called themselves diarists, journalists, or journalers. Justin Hall, who began personal blogging.

 (information collected from - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog#Origins)

1995- the first use of the term weblog, it came from a paper named “Exploiting the World-Wide Web for Electronic Meeting Document Analysis and Management” by G. Raikundalia & M. Rees, two lecturers from Bond University on the Gold Coast.

1997- popular use of the term weblog.

(Information collected from - http://www.blogherald.com/2005/03/06/a-short-history-of-blogging/)

There is many many different types of blogs but some consist of these:

The Huffington Post online newspaper



TechCrunch latest technology blog

 This is two example of today's most popular blogs. Tech crunch is a blog all about the latest technology and The huffington post in an online newspaper. The most popular blog will always be changing as there is always new ones posted and new poeple to vote. Today the people have chosen a very popular online newspaper blog and a blog all about the lastest technology. Many people would choose the online newspaper to the real newspaper. This is because the online newspaper is faster to get to, it can be read from many different types of sources. For example phone, laptop, Ipad, Ipod... The Huffington blog is also free which means it is also cheaper than a real newspaper.
To get a newspaper you have to walk to place that would stock it, for example a newsagents. Then you would have to buy it and then walk back home again. If you had any of the sources mentioned above you do not have to walk anywhere unless you need to get to the source. You only need to click a few buttons and you arrive to the news you want to read. Much more convinient. Reading blogs like huffington is also much better for the enviorment as no paper is needed to make it. there is no mess and much less waste. This shows how news blogs have become so popular. However this does involve technology and the older generation are not always so good with technology, which means that they are more likely to prefer to go to get the real newspaper.
Then there is Tech crunch. This blogs will be read by a wide range of audience. This is because this website is aimed at anybody interested in technology and gadgets. People could be reading this blog at work, students in break time, computer techs in there free time.


There are around 7.4 million active blogs around the world. This means that there could be countless numbers of blogs that have been made and just not published.

There are many possitive and negative things about blogs. Blogs can be a brilliant way of getting your fellings and emotions out there. It allows you to focus on one subject and talk about that subject to many people all over the world. Blogs allow you to meet new people and make new friends and share your opinions with them. They are easy to make and easy to edit and change. Most of the blogs you get to make are also free. So this will invite more people to join. Blogs can express many different feelings such as funny, sad, happy, angry and people may find this entertaining. It can keep people amused/ interrested for hours. On the other hand there are the bad effects of blogs. The owner of the blog may not always get nice responses to their blog. Which means they will have to deal with spam comments and rude wording. There are also some potential security risks. For example people can hack your blog account and can gather all the information you have on there and they could also then create blogs with bad content. For example viruses. Blogs always needs to update themselves as techonlogy is always advancing. This means that the blog website may need to update at an inconvienient times. Unfortunately whilst the blog website is updating the whole website is unusable. This will put a lot of people off and they will not use them anymore.
People creating blogs also have to be very carefull of what they do as if you make a mistake it is immidiately live. This means that everybody who looks at that blog when you create it will be able to see your mistakes.
There was a story in the news about an employee who got told off by his employer. The employee then decided to write a horrible comment about him on his own blog, unfortunately his boss found this comment and the employee then lost his job.


Examples:

These are examples of induviduals blogs
http://blog.benhall.me.uk/
http://angiepedersen.typepad.com/
http://angrychineseblogger.blog-city.com/about_me.htm

These are examples of today's most popular blogs:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

http://www.techcrunch.com/

http://www.gizmodo.com/

http://mashable.com/

http://www.gawker.com/

http://www.engadget.com/

http://www.tmz.com/

http://www.boingboing.net/

http://www.thedailybeast.com/

http://www.readwriteweb.com/

• Personal: This is the broadest category and includes blogs about personal topics like politics, music, family, travel, health, you name it. They can be as long and as short as you would like them to be. The user can let anybody or no body see there blog(s).
• Business: Professionals ranging from Realtors to lawyers and stock brokers are using WordPress to share their expertise, and companies have discovered the power of blogs to personally engage with their customers.
• Schools: WordPress is a great way for teachers and students to collaborate on classroom projects.
• Non-profits: Foundations, charities, and human rights groups find blogs to be great tools to raise awareness and money for their causes.
• Politics: Members of parliament, political parties, government agencies, and activists using blogs to connect with their constituencies.
• Military: Members of the military use blogs to report what they see happening in various parts of the world and to stay in touch with their families.
• Private: Some people make their blogs private to share photos and information within families, companies, or schools.
• Sports: Blogs can be used for teams, athletes, and fans to share their passion for various sports.
• How-to, tips and reviews: There are lots of blogs that share tips and reviews about cooking, games, music, books, movies, and so on. Many will also use this kind of blog if they need help on a particular subject or question at school/college...

(information from - http://en.wordpress.com/types-of-blogs/)