What is a Blog

What is a Blog?

A blog (a blend of the term “weblog”) is a type of website or part of a website.

Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. Blog can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

Most blogs are interactive, allowing visitors to leave comments and even message each other via widgets on the blogs and it is this interactivity that distinguishes them from other static websites.

Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, Web pages, and other media related to its topic.

The ability of readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (Art blog), photographs (photoblog), videos (video blogging), music (MP3 blog), and audio (podcasting). Microblogging is another type of blogging, featuring very short posts.

The modern blog evolved from the online diary, where people would keep a running account of their personal lives.

Types of Blogs

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.

Personal Blogs

The personal blog, an ongoing diary or commentary by an individual, is the traditional, most common blog. Personal bloggers usually take pride in their blog posts, even if their blog is never read. Few personal blogs rise to fame and the mainstream, but some personal blogs quickly garner an extensive following.

Corporate and Organizational Blogs

A blog can be private, as in most cases, or it can be for business purposes. Blogs used internally to enhance the communication and culture in a corporation or externally for marketing, branding or public relations purposes are called corporate blogs. There are similar blogs for clubs and societies to inform members and other interested parties of club and member activities.

By Genre

Some blogs focus on a particular subject, such as political blogs, travel blogs (also known as travelogs), house blogs, fashion blogs, project blogs, education blogs, niche blogs, classical music blogs, quizzing blogs and legal blogs (often referred to as a blawgs) or dreamlogs.

By Media Type

A blog comprising videos is called a vlog, one comprising links is called a linklog, a site containing a portfolio of sketches is called a sketchblog or one comprising photos is called a photoblog. Blogs with shorter posts and mixed media types are called tumblelogs. Blogs that are written on typewriters and then scanned are called typecast or typecast blogs.

A rare type of blog hosted on the Gopher Protocol is known as a Phlog.

By Device

Blogs 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.

Here are a few common “blog-related” words to help you out:

1) Aggregator - In Internet technology it is software or a hosted application that collects feeds from various sources and displays it in a single consolidated view

2) Blogger - Person who runs a blog. Also blogger.com, a popular blog hosting web site.

3) Blogroll - A list of other blogs that a blogger might recommend by providing links to them (usually in a sidebar list).

4) Blogosphere - All blogs, or the blogging community. Also called blogistan or, more rarely, blogspace.

5) Collaborative blog - A blog (usually focused on a single issue or political stripe) on which multiple users enjoy posting permission. Also known as group blog.

6) Permalink - Permalink stands for permanent link, which is a URL (uniform resource locator) that leads to an individual post that you make in your blog.

7) Pinging - Blogging seems to be paired with pinging almost every time either one is mentioned nowadays. Pinging is actually the action where a certain aggregator is notified whenever your blog is updated, so that the aggregator may show the newest post of your blog on their website. This is a useful way of gaining traffic, which we'll discuss later.

8) Post - An entry written and published to a blog.

9) RSS feed - The file containing a blog’s latest posts. It is read by an RSS aggregator/reader and shows at once when a blog has been updated. It may contain only the title of the post, the title plus the first few lines of a post, or the entire post.

10) Trackback - When you post about someone's blog post elsewhere, your post will show up in their “trackback” section. This feature, however, is not available with a Blogger.com account.

Here is an example of a blog:  http://thingsforchristmas.com

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