About Blogging

• Blogs are one of the fastest growing forms of communication.blog image by Ewe Degiampietro from Fotolia.com
  
  The word blog is short for the term weblog. A weblog is an online chronicle of an event or information. Most blogs are dedicated to a particular subject. Feature articles, which are typically referred to as postings, are published on a fairly regular basis. Blogs are maintained by individuals, companies and even some organizations. A blog may have just one author or a whole collection of contributors that write articles and then post their articles to the blog. Not unlike a column in a traditional paper, many blogs have loyal and dedicated readerships.
  
  

History

• Unix users were using computers to journal long before the internet.laptop image by jedphoto from Fotolia.com
  
  There is much debate over who actually fathered the blog. The general format of a blog has been around since the 1970's, when the early Unix system users had the ability to each maintain their own text documents which could be viewed by any other Unix user on the same network. These text files were known as .plan files, and saved in the same familiar, reverse chronological order (newest items first) that modern day blogs do. The term "weblog" and "blog" did not become part of the vernacular of the Internet until some time in the late 1990's.
  
  

Features

• The relative anonymity of the Internet can lead to many people commenting.talking with boss image by Laser from Fotolia.com
  
  The blogs of today are more than just electronic copies of journal entries, though. Most blogs have a whole host of features that allow the general public on the Internet to interact with the author in some way. Often bloggers will allow comments to be posted after each of their blog postings, which has in some cases created some fairly impressive conversations. People that read blogs also have the option of getting automatic feeds of many of the blogs that they read so that their Internet surfing experience is something like watching a news channel, with a constantly scrolling bar of breaking news items.
  
  

Types

• Mommy bloggers are a huge segment of the blogging population today.baby mommy image by Francois du Plessis from Fotolia.com
  
  There are many different types of blogs floating about the Internet today. People are posting blogs about everything from what cars to drive to details of their day-to-day lives. Many companies have blogs on their websites, which provide them with a forum for introducing new products and services to their customers and allows them to "humanize" their companies.
  
  One of the most quickly growing segments of the blogging culture is known as the "mommy blogger". Mommy bloggers are writers who write about their kids, the experience of raising them and the minutia of daily life. Some mommy bloggers, like the super popular Dooce.com, have become so popular and well-known that they are actually able to support themselves and their families off of their blogs.
  
  

Income Sources

• Ads on blogs are like tiny little billboards.Vintage Billboard image by Tahoe Bearables from Fotolia.com
  
  Bloggers can monetize their blogs by allowing advertisers to place ads on their blogs. Many of the mainstream blogging services have automated ways of allowing bloggers to tie their blogs into online advertisers, such as Google Adwords. Others who have blogs with higher traffic may even sell ad space to companies that are eager to reach the market that frequents their blog. Others still will get paid to talk about or endorse specific products and services.