Blogging is a communication tool that relies on the internet and it started in the early 1990’s. Today blogging is so popular and the expansion of blogs is still surging. A blog is a fusion of the terms “web” and “log.” In general, a blog is a kind of website that is maintained by a person and it is posted with consistent entries of materials like videos, commentaries or a short description of events in an order that is chronologically converse (Bausch, Haughey, and Hourihan 3). This essay explains the history of blogging, the reason that drives and makes the trend to become popular.
On May, 1999, Peter Merholz came up with the term blog as a verb which means to add some information to a blog (Hewitt 2). These sites are very interactive and one can post a comment unlike other sites. In the period preceding blogging, communities that were linked digitally used Internet Forum to design and keep people conversing using “threads” or connections that occur between conversations on a corkboard that was virtual. Today’s blog is a direct origin of an online diary which was initially run by, Justin Hall, a Swarthmore College student way back in 1994. Hall is one of the very first bloggers who inspired the thousands that run their blogs on the internet. Bloggers or people who post any information on blogs do so because they want to communicate to the public about their views on business, politics, sports and even war (O’Brien 5).
In 1999, Bruce Ableson started the Open Diary that generated into a thousand diaries. Readers were able to read his views and post their own comments on the Open Diary (Hewitt 4). Soon, the readers were also able to read the diaries of other bloggers and post their comments. The fact that an individual could be able to exchange views about a certain subject is what drove the popularity surge of blogs among many internet users.
Most individuals wonder why blogs are gaining so much popularity by the day. To begin with, bloggers provide a free avenue of communication and serve as a link to so many internet users. Currently, there are very many types of blogs. There are marketing blogs, private blogs, corporate blogs and those that center on specific topics. If an individual wants certain information, he or she needs to search for specific blogs because they are easy to read and have both positive and negative views (The Editors of the Huffington Post and Huffington Arianna 43).
Another factor that makes blogging popular is that it depends on the creativity and the imagination of the blogger. A typical blog entry has a title, body, and headline, the date of the post, views posted, tags, videos and even graphics. A blog can be customizable since a blogger can chose a template and even a layout that will determine the way the blog will look.
The rising use of blogs is mostly attributed to the fact that a blogger is free to choose the topic that they want and what they want to write in it. A blogger can vent out his or her resentments to the public, write on issues that they care about like “climate change,” and even discuss personal life. According to Powers et al., there is simply no limitation on the topics that can be blogged about (22). This freedom of expression is what encourages many people to use blogs contrary to other forms of expression like personal letters that may result into serious repercussions like jail terms. Most blogging sites encourage blogging because registration is free.
Blogging is a lot of fun for those people who enjoy writing. It helps to relive stress and a person can have it in any way that they prefer. There is always freedom to choose such that if one blog is not interesting, a person is allowed to create and blog others. Blogging popularity has gone to a different level because a publisher can evaluate the affiliations that a blogger has and contact him or her to write and even publish journals and books (Bausch, Haughey, and Hourihan 34)!
In the political world, blogging is used to advance the views of candidates while any negative comment by a popular candidate can lead to a loss in the number of votes. Political candidates, news agencies and political consultants have enlisted the services of blogs and used them as opinion shaping tools. For instance, in 2008, the Israel Government set up the very first official blog where people could ask questions and get answers on the War between Israel and Hamas (O’Brien 17). In the beginning of the year 2000, blogs have been used to shape, spin and break new stories. People have used them to communicate their views on controversial issues like the Iraq War and the 9/11 attacks.
The popularity of blogging has also led to the marketing of corporates and multinationals. Many businesses have grown because of blogs. However, it is true that blogging has led to the reduction of profits of mainstream journalism. People get news and information from blogs such that nobody cares about the daily papers. It is a fact that, the freedom of expression associated with blogs, freedom of choice and the way blogs can be customized is what drives the ever-surging trend of blogging (Hewitt 4).
Works Cited
Bausch, Paul., Haughey, Matthew., and Hourihan, Meg. We Blog: Publishing Online with
Weblogs. New York, Wiley. 2002. Print.
Hewitt, Hugh. Blog: Understanding the Information Reformation That's Changing Your World.
New York, Thomas Nelson. 2005.
O’Brien, Barbara. Blogging America: Political Discourse in a Digital Nation. IL: Maryville,
William James and Company. 2004. Print.
Powers, Shelley, et al.. Essential Blogging: Selecting and Using Weblog Tools. O’Reily Media.
2002. Print.
The Editors of the Huffington Post and Huffington Arianna. The Huffington Post Complete
Guide to Blogging. New York, Simon and Schuster. 2008. Print.
