Jan 12, 200608:22 AMThe Life

Blogging for dummies

A "blog" (short for "weblog") is a website containing dated entries in reverse chronological order, most recent first, authored by an individual or group. Adding material to an existing blog is called "blogging," which is performed by a "blogger." Individual articles on a blog are called "posts" or "entries." "Blogosphere" refers to the total universe of blogs.

Blogs took off in the summer of 1999, when automatic blogging software opened up the process of creating websites to those who lacked a knowledge of the codes which make clickable links on webpages.

The Reporters Without Frontiers organization has written: Blogs get people excited. Or else they disturb and worry them. Some people distrust them. Others see them as the vanguard of a new information revolution.

Business Week magazine says: Go ahead and bellyache about blogs. But you cannot afford to close your eyes to them, because they're simply the most explosive outbreak in the information world since the Internet itself. And they're going to shake up just about every business - including yours.

Time magazine recently published an article on Soldier Blogs (A, B, C, D, E): One of the main ways in which the current war differs from its predecessors is the direct access that soldiers have to those at home via online blogs. Those diaries give ground-level views of the highs and lows of soldiering in Iraq.

Brian Williams (NBC) is blogging, Barbra Streisand blogs "statements" and Dave Barry blogs funny stuff. Mostly. U.S. Congressman John Conyers (D-Michigan) has a blog. Former California Governor (now Oakland Mayor) Jerry Brown has a blog. General Motors has a blog. Boeing has a blog. Heck, even the World Bank has a blog.

Then there's Nick Denton, whose Gawker Media blog empire was recently valued at $274 million...

Approximately one billion people (15% of the world's population) now use the Internet. In October 2005, there were about 100,000,000 blogs. 32 million American adults read blogs, and a new one is created every second.

Yeah, I used to teach a Blogging course. Why do you ask?