Historical Background
of Blogging
Before the advent of the internet, electronic
communities did exist. For instance, AP wire was quite similar
to chat rooms. It comprises of wire fights and electronic
conversations. Amateur radio belongs to the pre-digital
electronic community. Individuals, who are able to set up
their own transmitters, were allowed to communicate directly.
Things have undergone a sea change since that era.
On
17th December 1997, Jorn Barger coined the term weblog. Peter
Merholz broke the term weblog into ‘we blog’ and coined the
short-term blog. Justin Hall is considered as one of the
earliest bloggers. Though it started gradually, blogging
became popular in little time. In the year 1996, the website
Xanga was launched, which comprised of 100 diaries by the year
1997. The year 1999 witnessed a greater spread in the usage of
the blogs.
Prior to the arrival of blogging, digital
communities existed in varied forms such as Usenet, e-mail
list and bulletin board. Running conversation with threads was
created by the internet forum software known as web Ex. Modern
blog has evolved from the online diary in which people
incorporate running account about their personal lives. The
first personal blog started in the year 1995. Blog writers are
usually referred as diarists, journalists, journallers or
journalers.
October 1998 marked the arrival of Open
Diary. This resulted in the establishment of thousands of
online diaries. Reader comments were an Open Diary innovation.
It was the first blog, where readers could add comments. In
March 1999, Brad Fitzpatrick introduced Live Journal, and soon
after August 1999 marked the launch of blogger.com by Evan
Williams and Meg Hourihan.
The Term weblog, weblogging
and weblogger were incorporated in the Oxford English
Dictionary on March 2003. Dave Winer has a major role in
making tools that are helpful in creating blogs. His
significant contributions include setting up servers.
Blogging comprises of personal web page and tools to
create links with other pages. It encompasses blogrolls and
trackbacks. Thus, bloggers are able to control threads that
connect them with others. The year 2001 marked the emergence
of the first popular American blog. Andrew Sullivan named it
as AndrewSullivan.com. Another famous blog was Politics1.com.
Ron Gunzburger was the man behind this site.
Blogging
became a phenomenon by the year 2001. How-to manuals of
blogging started appearing. These manuals focus mainly on its
techniques. Famous journalism schools also started research
over blogging. Blogs have also played a key role during the
Iraq war. The second Iraq war was also considered the first
blog war. A wide readership was gained by Iraqi bloggers.
Though the blogging history is brief, but it appears
set to create a history of its own a few years from
now.
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