At 02:06 PM 6/6/02 -0700, joanna bujes wrote: OK. I understand it's short for "web log," but what's a web log? It sounds like something a browser might maintain privately, like a log of all the links you go to...
...but obviously that's not what it means because people use it more in the sense of "web page."
So, please, what's a blog?
i've been looking into them as a low cost content management system. when i was doing the research, I came across this article, below. I thought it was interesting in so far as the concept was originally about enabling people to work together and to build communities on the web. anyway, this basically covers it, i think: <>
The Blogging Revolution By Biz Stone
In 1994 the Web was a garden of personal home pages blooming with thoughts, opinions, and life experiences. People were learning how to build their own sites, experimenting with design, and sharing their voice with the world while the business world scrambled for ways to "monetize" the internet and capitalize on its fertility.
Then they paved it all and built a mall.
But behind the scenes of today's Web, swollen with e-stores, bloated with search engines, and exploding with mega-portals offering streams of relentless, commercialized content and "free services," a real revolution is taking seed.
The Web is going back to its early days, but it's taking back technology that promises to stir the sleeping giant. Soon, the soul of the Internet will sprout up through the cracks and ripen under the gaze of eager netizens, all in the form of a "blog."
Atomic Potatoes Batman! What's a Blog? The word "blog" evolved from "Web Log" because, like a periodic element, it deserves its own moniker. Blogs feed off the Web, digest it, recycle it, and infuse it with new life. Created by feisty, intelligent, opinionated, and sometimes subversive people or small groups, blogs are the future of personal publishing.
Blogs can be flatly defined as pages that maintain annotated lists of Web links. This alone does not sound like the vehicle of a revolution, but then, splitting an atom doesn't sound that impressive either. I mean, c'mon, a potato is much bigger than an atom.
The idea behind blogging is simple. Browserware, or Web-based software, allows a person to work in a friendly, familiar environment, while behind the scenes crazy John Woo-style digital action is taking place. Your thoughts, links, and pictures are being uploaded, formatted, placed according to your preset design, and saved to your Web page. This means that you can surf around as you normally would, occasionally contributing to your blog and when people go to your Web page they think you are an amazing Web publishing tycoon.
I discovered blogs when I discovered Blogger, a site that predicts "The Revolution Will Be Bloggerized" and offers "Push Button Publishing for the People." Blogger provides an extremely usable visual work environment that coordinates with your FTP site so you don't have to. In other words, you go to their site, enter some text and maybe a link into a box and click "Publish." A moment later, your Web page at www.somewhere.com/you is all fresh and updated. You can also allow others to contribute to your blog, adjust a plethora of preferences, archive your entries, and import your own designs.
I started my blog one Sunday very easily, but then, I am under the impression that I am a genius, and that everything for me is like buttah. Here's what I did. I joined Geocities and claimed the home page that was "waiting for me." Then I went to Blogger and signed up. I had to fill out a page of forms at first so it would all work properly, but once I did that I was in business.
Currently, Blogger reigns supreme as the coolest and best Web logging site there is. A visit to their front page is an introduction to a community of avid bloggers and newcomers are warmly welcomed. When I joined Blogger and started my own blog a few seasoned bloggers sent me emails saying they liked my blog and a search of Blogger's community yielded a handful of others who had linked to me. I don't think I would have continued without the encouragement.
Blogging Tour: It's All About People A blog can take on many forms, it can feature news, reviews, photos, or just plain random thoughts. Blogs can also be used as a supplement to an existing site or even as a company intranet or message board. It's this symbiotic flexibility that makes blogs so scaleable and ensures their survival and success, they are the next big thing in the development of the Internet.
Blogs can provide alternative quirky news that gives us a break from the gruesome, tragedy-ridden headlines of television and newspapers. Jim Romenesko digests headlines of bizarre stories and features unique and freaky products available from the farthest corners of the Web at his Obscure Store and Reading Room. If you have the means, I highly recommend it.
The sharply creative Raza Syed regularly broadcasts post-industrial kvetching in the form of witty comments and introspective autobiographical tidbits from his blog, High Industrial. Syed laments his recent introduction to reality, "School gave up the ghost with a whimper, and now I feel like Harrison Ford at the end of the director's cut of Blade Runner: ambivalent. I'm in between gestalts right now. Gripes about higher education are strictly passé, and my dreams (term used loosely) of salaried employ are as yet unresolved, so I'm not allowed to complain winningly about the postindustrial grind. Emphasis on yet. I'll write more when I have something compelling to say."
Craig at Periodically.com uses his blog to warn his fellow citizens, "In honor of the 4th of July, I feel it is once again my duty to report to you the enemy among us. A people so diabolical, so menacing, so dangerous that they have duped almost everyone! I am talking about the enemy that is the great white north, that which is CANADA!" Craig, like other bloggers, also compiles links of his favorite sites, and lists of books he has read and plans to read. He also has a sneaky lateral-thinking puzzle with floating, disembodied heads of rock stars.
A friend of mine called me up one day and told me he had just made his girlfriend upset because he was describing the fantastically fictitious inner workings of why her window plants weren't going to survive much longer. Although she was not amused, I was. So, we began collaborating on the inner workings of other items. My first thought was that we should work on a book together, but then I knew a project like that would not get carried out, so my next thought was that we should start a blog. That's how Supertectonics was created. We now run a blog that claims "We Know Anything" and provides a platform for our readers to submit questions to us.
E News Daily co-anchor Jules Asner asked me to create a site for her that features news and photos relating to Jules. Recently, I blogified the front page by starting a new blog at Blogger and pasting my design into the template area. Now it's easier to post upcoming events and information because I don't have to FTP files. What's more, I can update the site from any computer.
Alecia Goode has been chronicling the development of her yet to be born baby at Baby Blog . From yard sale rocking cows and sheets that attack, to baby CPR and Martha Stewart Baby, Alecia's blog is a valuable resource to would-be moms. "I went to a second trimester class on Tuesday (even though I'm 26 weeks along and 27 is third trimester) and it was great. We sat around talking about common pregnancy ailments and dreams and we were all laughing until we started talking about infant CPR. The CPR is the main reason why I took the class in the first place, but when the lady said, 'Sometimes babies sleep so deeply they forget to wake up,' we all kind of freaked. I suppose it really hit me then that after all these 9 months, even when everything goes perfect at birth, it is only the very beginning."
Metafilter recognizes that there's strength in numbers as they state on their about page, "Metafilter is a Weblog that anyone can contribute a link or a comment to. A typical Weblog is one person posting their thoughts on the unique things they find on the Web. This Web site exists to break down the barriers between people, to extend a Weblog beyond just one person, and to foster discussion among its members."
Reminiscent of grass-roots era Web days, indeed.
Point, Click, Divulge Many blogs are created and maintained by folks who, at the very least, "dabble" in Web design and development. As a result, most blogs reflect the individuality and character of their authors in both content and aesthetic. The real power of blogging, however, will be its availability to the common Web user. Blogger is aimed a bit more at Web savvy individuals but there are other sites and services that cater to people who just want something that's "e-mail easy."
Some other services that let you customize your blog with point and click ease are Diaryland.com, Pitas.com, and Weblogs.com. These same services and others like them will also host your blog so that you don't even need to think about FTP. Just sign up and start exposing yourself.
Blogging captures thoughts that might ordinarily be fleeting and turns them into internationally published pearls of wisdom. The idea that the Web is a platform for individual voices to be heard has been hidden behind the shadow of a mega-commercial invasion. With the proliferation of blogs, we are going to reclaim the Web as our personal publishing platform (say that ten times fast) and in so doing, we will create an infinitely organic infrastructure that will take on a life of its own. I'm making it sound a little freaky, but it's not, it's cool.
Blogging for Dollars Once blogging has successfully integrated itself as a staple of the Web and a common tool for the average Web user, industries and products will begin to grow around it.
Recently, some Metafilter contributors were tossing around the idea of using Paypal, a service that makes person to person monetary exchanges as easy as sending an email, to donate micropayments to the authors of blogs that they enjoy. Although this is an interesting idea, it is a bit reminiscent of PBS's sempiternal pledge drives and its allure may soon fade.
Most likely, the first spawn will be some kind of financial incentive to blog, a kind of "blogging for dollars" type of deal. So many bloggers already enjoy reviewing their favorite music, movies, and books that they hardly need incentives, but I can easily visualize a blogcentric affiliate industry enriching avid contributors with 15% commissions. In fact, I am in the employ of a company right now that, among other things, offers point-and-click architecture for building a blog style affiliate store. That way, when Alecia reviews her "Angel Care Baby Monitor" it will also be readily available for online purchase by her readers. In this manner, Alecia can generate income from publishing something she is passionate about, and nobodywill feel guilty if they don't "tip" her.
Self publishing is nothing new, it's been around since before people were scrolling through actual scrolls. The Internet is the place for it and with emerging browserware that will empower the masses to point, click, and publish their wisdom, lunacy, mistakes, advice, and experiences, the Web will come alive with content that is rich in originality, deeply personal, and oozing with individualism. <http://www.webreview.com/2000/07_07/designers/07_07_00_1.shtml>
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