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In the 2000s, blogs were often the work of a single individual, occasionally of a small group, and often covered a single subject or topic. In the 2010s, "multi-author blogs" (MABs) emerged, featuring the writing of multiple authors and sometimes professionally edited. MABs from newspapers, other media outlets, universities, think tanks, advocacy groups, and similar institutions account for an increasing quantity of blog traffic. The rise of Twitter and other microblogging platforms helps integrate MABs and single-author blogs into the news media. A blog can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.
The emergence and growth of blogs in the late 1990s coincided with the advent of web publishing tools that facilitated the posting of content by non-technical users who did not have much experience with HTML or Computer Programming. Previously, knowledge of such technologies as HTML and File Transfer Protocol had been required to publish content on the Web, and early web users therefore tended to be hackers and computer enthusiasts.
As of the 2010s, the majority are interactive Web 2.0 websites, allowing visitors to leave online comments, and it is this interactivity that distinguishes them from other static websites. In that sense, blogging can be seen as a form of social networking service.
Indeed, bloggers not only produce content to post on their blogs but also often build social relations with their readers and other bloggers. Blog owners or authors often moderate and filter online comments to remove hate speech or other offensive content. There are also high-readership blogs that do not allow comments.
Many blogs provide commentary on a particular subject or topic, ranging from philosophy, religion, and arts to science, politics, and sports. Other functions are more personal online diaries or online brand advertising of a particular individual or company. A typical blog combines text, digital images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (art blogs), photographs (photoblogs), videos (video blogs or vlogs) music (mp3 blogs), and audio blogs (podcasts).
In education, blogs can be used as instructional resources; these are referred to as edublogs. Microblogging is another type of blogging, featuring very short posts.
'Blog' and 'Blogging' are now loosely used for content creation and sharing on social media, especially when the content is long-form and one creates and shares content regularly. So, one could be maintaining a blog on Facebook or blogging on Instagram.
The term "weblog" was coined by Jorn Barger on December 17, 1997. The short form "blog" was coined by Peter Merholz, who jokingly broke the word weblog into the phrase blog in the sidebar of his blog www.peterme.com in May 1999.
Shortly thereafter, Evan Williams at Pyra Labs used "blog" as both a noun and verb ("to blog", meaning "to edit one's weblog or to post one's weblog") and devised the term "blogger" in connection with Pra Labs' Blogger product, leading to the popularization of the terms.
Before blogging became popular, digital communities took many forms, including commercial online services such as GEnie, Byte Information Exchange (BIX), and the early CompuServe, email lists, and Bulletin Board Systems (BBS). In the 1990s, Internet Forum software created running conversations with "threads". Threads are topical connections between messages on a virtual corkboard.
Berners-Lee also created what is considered by Encyclopedia Britannica to be "the first blog" in 1992 to discuss the progress made in creating the World Wide Web and the software used for it.
From June 14 1993 Ranjit Bhatnagar started writing about interesting sites, pages, and discussion groups he found on the internet, as well as some personal information, on his website Moonmilk, arranging them chronologically in a special section called Ranjit's HTTP playground. Other early pioneers of blogging, such as Justin Hall, credit him with being an inspiration.
The earliest instance of a commercial blog was on the first business-to-consumer website created in 1995, by Ty Inc., which featured a blog in a section called "Online Diary". The entries were maintained by featured Beanie Babies that were voted for monthly by website visitors.
The modern blog evolved from the online diary where people would keep a running account of the events in their personal lives. Most such writers called themselves diarists, journalists, or journalers. Justin Hall, who began personal blogging in 1994 while a student at Swarthmore College, is generally recognized as one of the earlier bloggers, as is Jerry Pournelle.
Dave Winer's Scripting News is also credited with being one of the older and longer-running weblogs. The Australian Netguide magazine maintained the Daily Net News on its website from 1996. Daily Net News ran links and daily reviews of news websites, mostly in Australia.
Another early blog was Wearable Wireless Webcam, an online shared diary of a person's personal life combining text, digital video, and digital pictures transmitted live from a wearable computer and Eye Tap device to a website in 1994. The practice of semi-automated blogging with live video together with text was referred to as sousveillance, and such journalists were also used as evidence in legal matters. Some early bloggers, such as The Misanthropic Bitch, who began in 1997, actually referred to their online presence as a zine, before the term blog entered common usage.
The first research paper about blogging was Torill Mortensen and Jill Walker Rettberg's paper 'Blogging Thoughts', which analyzed how blogs were being used to foster research communities and the exchange of ideas and scholarship, and how this new means of networking overturns traditional power structures.
Early blogs were simply manually updated components of common websites. In 1995, the "Online Diary" on the Ty. Inc's website was produced and updated manually before any blogging programs were available. Posts were made to appear in reverse chronological order by manually updating text-based HTML code using FTP software in real time several times a day.
To users, this offered the appearance of a live diary that contained multiple new entries per day. At the beginning of each new day, new diary entries were manually coded into a new HTML file, and at the start of each month, diary entries were archived into their folder, which contained a separate HTML page for every day of the month. then, menus that contained links to the most recent diary entry were updated manually throughout the site. This text-based method of organizing thousands of files served as a springboard to define future blogging styles that were captured by blogging software developed years later.
The evolution of electronic and software tools to facilitate the production and maintenance of web articles posted in reverse chronological order made the publishing process feasible for a much larger and less technically inclined population. Ultimately, this resulted in the distinct class of online "blogging". Blogs can be hosted by dedicated blog hosting services, or run using blog software.
There are many different types of blogs, differing not only in the type of content but also in the way that content is delivered or written;
A personal blog is an ongoing online diary or commentary written by an individual, rather than a corporation or organization. While the vast majority of personal blogs attract very few readers, other than the blogger's immediate family and friends, a small number of personal blogs have become popular, to the point that they have attracted lucrative advertising sponsorship. A tiny number of personal bloggers have become famous, both in the online community and in the real world.
A type of weblog in which posts are written and published by more than one author. The majority of high-profile collaborative blogs are organized according to a single uniting theme, such as politics, technology, or advocacy. In recent years, the blogosphere has seen the emergence and growing popularity of more collaborative efforts, often set up by already established bloggers wishing to pool time and resources, both to reduce the pressure of maintaining a popular website and to attract a larger readership.
Microblogging is the practice of posting small pieces of digital content - which could be text, pictures, links, short videos, or other media - on the internet. Microblogging offers a portable communication mode that feels organic and spontaneous to many users. It has captured the public imagination, in part because the short posts are easy to read on the go or when waiting. Friends use it to keep in touch, business associates use it to coordinate meetings or share useful resources, and celebrities and politicians (or their publicists) microblog about concert details, lectures, book releases, or tour schedules. A wide and growing range of add-on tools enables sophisticated updates and interaction with other applications. The resulting profusion of functionality is helping to define new possibilities for this type of communication. Examples of these include Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and Weibo.
A blog can be private, as in most cases, or it can be for business not-for-profit, or government purposes. Blogs used internally and only available to employees via an Intranet are called corporate blogs. Companies use internal corporate blogs to enhance communication, culture, and employee engagement in a corporation. Internal corporate blogs can be used to communicate news about company policies or procedures, build employee esprit de corps, and improve morale. Companies and other organizations also use external, publicly accessible blogs for marketing, branding, or public relations purposes. Some organizations have a blog authored by their executive; in practice, many of these executive blog posts are penned by a ghostwriter who makes posts in the style of the credited author. Similar blogs for clubs and societies are called club blogs, group blogs, or by similar names; typical use is to inform members and other interested parties of club and member activities.
Individuals or organizations may aggregate selected feeds on a specific topic, product, or service and provide a combined view for its readers. This allows readers to concentrate on reading instead of searching for quality on-topic content and managing subscriptions. Many such aggregations are called planets from the name of planet software that performs such aggregation, hosting sites usually have a planet, which is usually a subdomain in the domain name.
Some blogs focus on a particular subject, such as;
How-to / Tutorial blogs are becoming increasingly popular. Two common types of blogs are art blogs and music blogs. A blog featuring discussions, especially about home and family is not uncommonly called a mom blog. While not a legitimate type of blog, one used for the sole purpose of spamming is known as a splog.
A blog comprising videos is called a vlog, one comprising links is called a link log, a site containing a portfolio of sketches is called a sketch blog, and one comprising photos is called a photoblog. Blogs with shorter posts and mixed media types are called tumbleblogs. Blogs that are written on typewriters and scanned are called typecast or typecasted blogs. A rare type of blog hosted on the Gopher Protocol is known as phlog.
A blog can also be defined by which type of device is used to compose it. A blog written by a mobile device like a mobile phone or PDA could be called a moblog. One early blog was Wearable Wireless Webcam, an online shared diary of a person's personal life combining text, video, and pictures transmitted live from a wearable computer and Eye Tap device to a website. This practice of semi-automated blogging with live video together with text was referred to as sousveillance. Such journals have been used as evidence in legal matters.
A reverse blog is composed of its users rather than a single blogger. This system has the characteristics of a blog and the writing of several authors. These can be written by several contributing authors on a topic or opened up for anyone to write. There is typically some limit to the number of entries to keep it from operating like a web forum.
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