History of Blogs

Hello again. Well, the first essay is over and our focus in class this week has been on blogs. Our reading assignment dealt with the origins and history of the weblog, and outlined the different types of weblogs as well as some common uses for blogs. In this week’s installment I will try to summarize the history of weblogs and give some information about what weblogs are commonly used for, and why they are a noteworthy form of new media.
In late 1997 there were only a few sites on the web that we would define as blogs today. These sites were not linked, and they were largely unknown to the average internet browser. The start of the blog revolution can be traced back to Jesse James Garrett, who began compiling a list of sites that were similar to his (sites that consisted of links to a site or article and commentary). Jesse sent his list to a friend named Cameron Barrett who published the list of links on his own website, CamWorld. This list contained the 23 blogs known to exist as of 1999.
More and more people found out about blogging and began their own blogs. Soon there were thousands of blogs on the internet. As blogging became more and more popular, naturally, tools to make it easier and more available were created. In 1999, Pitas launched the first free build-your-own weblog site, which made it possible for anyone to maintain a blog. Shortly after that many other similar sites were created, including blogger, the site used for this blog. The first blogs were what we would consider link-driven blogs. They almost always consisted of a link to some web page accompanied by some sort of commentary about the page. Usually these were pages that the blogger wanted to bring to the attention of anyone who happened to read the blog.
The other form of weblog that has become quite popular today is the journal style blog. Blogger was a pioneer in proliferation of this style of blog. Whereas some of the first blog making tools required a link to accompany any commentary, in a journal style blog the blogger posts a thought, often without any links but often with, which can be about anything. Some bloggers make posts about things that they happen to notice on their way to work or about their favorite recipes, for instance.
It is easy to see how blogs can be useful sources of information, or just fun. In fact no-one really knows what the future of blogging has in store. But it seems that blogging has caught on with the mainstream public. I think that it is safe to say that blogging will be with us for a while.