Blogging as a Publishing Business: What is a blog?

The term blog is short for web log. The original meaning of the term was any diary or journal kept online. The goal of blogging was to create a site in which one person or group wrote about their lives and invited other people to comment on what they wrote. The concept began to grow, however, and now encompasses a far wider variety of subjects and providers. There are now corporate blogs, professional blogs, job blogs, political blogs and many other types of blogs. Just about any topic can be turned into a blog, so the concept of it as a diary is a little outdated.

For our purposes, a blog is more about the technology and the presentation than the subject discussed. Blogs use server-side software to present their information. In other words, the person writing the blog typically does little more than type and format the article. The programming and presentation are automated using software that originates on the web site, not on the person�s computer. Blog scripting allows a publisher to automatically post information. This greatly increases the speed in which a site can be developed and updated.

One of the most important features/limitations of blogs is that blogs are chronological. The most recent entry appears at the top of the page and subsequent entries appear below the first entry or on separate pages. The relevance and positioning of an article is determined by time. The timeliness of the information presented is vital. People are most likely to read the most recent blog entry and less likely to read older entries. This is what differentiates a blog from a standard web site. On a standard web site, the designer decides what information goes where and determines the relative importance of the articles/links that appear.

Related links

• Blogging as a Publishing Business: Who should try it? (0.500)
• Blogging as a Publishing Business: How Much Money Can You Make? (0.500)
• Blogging as a Publishing Business: Personal Blogs (Diaries) (0.500)
• Blogging as a Publishing Business: Political Blogs (0.500)
• Blogging as a Publishing Business: Business Blogs (0.500)