#25 Blogs, Blogs Everywhere

Since I've started blogging, I've become aware of the blogging community (a bit late!) and where it comes from. I'm not sure anyone knows where it is going. There are supposedly over 60,000,000 blogs out there in cyberspace. I would guess not many of them are read very often. Some are no more then the modern version of the diary. Others are in support of some cause, some group, something. Many, like mine, let individuals share their knowledge and thoughts on wide ranging issues. So how did we get to 60 million bloggers in so short of time?

Blogs were online diaries that gave the writer the opportunity to let others know what they were up to. Justin Hall, a student at Swathmore College, is credited with one of the first blogs. Begun in 1994, Justin continued his blogging for an impressive 11 years. In the beginning, blogs were just threads of commentary, that by nature were in order from today to the past. At some point, people began adding comments to the blogs. So many comments that the comments ended up having blogging lives of their own. One of the early news bloggers, Matt Drudge, began to morph from blogger to full fledged news web site.

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 we blog in the sidebar of his blog Peterme.com in April or May of 1999. This was quickly adopted as both a noun and verb ("to blog," meaning "to edit one's weblog or to post to one's weblog"). One of the first sites to promote blogging was the still in existence XANGA. Begun in 1996, they now have over 20 million blogs.

So how can you make use of a blog? It certainly is a great way to get the same information to a great number of people. Better then email, because it doesn't go in SPAM filters or misses people because of vacation. It also leave a history that people can peruse at their leisure. We love the blogs our friends set up to document trips and adventures. We can live vicariously through their words (and pictures!). We use the Google sponsored Blogger software. Easy to use and still free. If you are thinking of starting a blog we highly recommend it: http://www.blogger.com/start