[-empyre-] what is a blog?

Jill Walker <jill.walker@uib.no> · Thu Jun 6 20:36:01 2002

Bev asked for a quick explanation of what a blog is, and so here's 
the description from an essay I wrote on blogs with Torill Mortensen 
(http://torillsin.blogspot.com) - you can find a link to the PDF of 
the essay from my blog, http://cmc.uib.no/jill if you're interested.
----

Weblogs, or blogs as they are affectionately termed, are frequently 
updated websites, usually personal, with commentary and links. Link 
lists are as old as home pages, but a blog is far from a static link 
list or home page. A blog consists of many relatively short posts, 
usually time-stamped, and organised in reverse chronology so that a 
reader will always see the most recent post first. The first weblogs 
were seen as filters to the Internet; interesting links to sites the 
reader might not have seen, often with commentary from the blogger.
Though weblogs have many different themes, looks and writing styles, 
formally the genre is clear. Brief, dated posts collected on one web 
page are the main formal criteria. Evan Williams, one of the creators 
of the popular blogging tool Blogger, is succinct in his definition:
<<To me, the blog concept is about three things: Frequency, Brevity, 
and Personality. (..) This clarification has evolved over time, but I 
realised early on that what was significant about blogs was the 
format - not the content. >>

----
OTHER USEFUL STUFF:

Rebecca Blood's essay about the history of blogs and her view of them 
(http://www.rebeccablood.net/essays/weblog_history.html) is a good 
introduction too, and I like what she writes about how blogging made 
her aware of what she actually found important rather than what she 
THOUGHT she found important. She's publishing a couple of books on 
blogs later this year, they're listed at amazon if you want to find 
out more.
Shortly after I began producing Rebecca's Pocket I noticed two side 
effects I had not expected. First, I discovered my own interests. I 
thought I knew what I was interested in, but after linking stories 
for a few months I could see that I was much more interested in 
science, archeology, and issues of injustice than I had realized. 
More importantly, I began to value more highly my own point of view. 
In composing my link text every day I carefully considered my own 
opinions and ideas, and I began to feel that my perspective was 
unique and important.

Going and looking at some is a good way of getting an idea of what 
they are, as Brandon suggested.

http://weblogs.com lists recently updated weblogs.

http://blogger.com is a popular tool for blogging. There's a free 
version and a pro version, and you can either use their webbased 
system to upload your blog to your own server, or use their server 
for free. It's really easy to use if you just want to try it out. 
There are lots of other systems as well.
Jill
--
Jill Walker / Dept of Humanistic Informatics / University of Bergen / 
5020 Bergen / Norway

http://cmc.uib.no/jill

jill.walker@uib.no