Blogging is a form of new media that is a way of collecting links to web pages and also keeping a personal diary about yourself (including your ideas and interests) to communicate with people online. The term blog derives from weblog as it was originally a way of people sharing interesting links with others online (logging the web). The website blogger.com has a number of definitions for a blog: A blog is a personal diary. A daily pulpit. A collaborative space. A political soapbox. A breaking-news outlet. A collection of links. Your own private thoughts. Memos to the world.
Blogs are often seen as new ways of reporting and receiving news as many provide commentaries on particular subjects (as seen this summer when various film websites blogged from the industry showcase Comic Con). Blogs often contain text, images, and links and can also host video files (spawning the video spin off vlogs).
The popularity of blogging has taken off considerably in recent years, possibly because of the ease in which anyone can start their own. In December 2007, the blog tracking site Technorati reported more than 112 million blogs worldwide.
There are various forms of blogs that stretch from personal use to corporate use:
Personal Blogs: This is the traditional form of blog. These are the blogs that often take the form of online diaries. Producers of these take great care with them even if no-one is reading them. Some blogs become well known, but this is rare as most of them never gain mainstream success.
Corporate Blogs: For business purposes. These blogs are often used to enhance communication within a company or for marketing strategies to advertise a new product (recent films, for example, have seen their directors blogging to keep fans up to date during production).
Question Blogging: This type of blog exists to answer questions. Users can submit questions to the writer via an online form or through email. They are often used in conjunction with podcasts and RSS to display show notes as a way of answering questions.
Blogging has actually come a long way in a short period of time. The term weblog came from Jorn Barger, who created the well known Robot Wisdom weblog. Since then the world of blogging has expanded to such an extent that a new word has been created to describe it The Blogosphere.