What is a blog?

"What is a blog" has become one of the hottest search keywords in major search engines in 2004 (related search keywords include "What is a blog", "What does a blog mean", "Blog China" and so on. ), and blogs were also rated as the hottest Internet phenomenon in 2004 by many organizations and media. Blog, the abbreviation of weblog, is simply webdiary. Many media and websites at home and abroad regard blog as the hottest word in 2004. There are many articles about blogs on the Internet. The following are some brief excerpts from the introduction.

Related concepts: What is blog marketing (Feng Yingjian's definition of blog marketing)?

Related research: special research on blog and network marketing (new observation on network marketing)

The following excerpts are from the brief history and basic historical facts of blog development by Dr. Fang Xingdong, the founder of China blog and the founder of Chinese translation of "blog". If you are interested in further understanding, you can refer to it. The original publication date was about August 2002, just after the blog China website was published.

Brief History and Basic Historical Facts of Blog Development (www.blogchina.com, Fang Xingdong)

Who is the father of blog?

The appearance of blog is only in recent years, but it is not easy to write the history of blog. Many historical materials have to be verified as "antiques", and there are many differences and disputes. For example, who is the "father of blogs"? There can't be a clear answer to this question because many celebrities are involved.

The earliest blog prototype

First of all, which was the earliest blog site? Obviously, the earliest blog appeared as a network "filter", that is, selecting some special websites and making a simple introduction. Therefore, some people think that Mosaic's What's New page, developed by the browser inventor Marc Andreesen, is the earliest blog page. Justin Hall's underworld link page (/weekly/Gibson2961014.html): "It won't be long before someone will browse the Internet for you, select content and make a living. There is indeed such a demand. "

The earliest blog

Dave Winer, CEO of Userland Company, started to operate www.scripting.com on 1997, and really began to have the basic and important features of blog. And he integrated these functions into the "frontier scripting environment" of free software. However, whether this is really the earliest blog is controversial. Some people think that formally speaking, it was Jorn Barger who established the basic appearance of today's blog site at the end of 1997.

Network administrators use log (log file) to refer to "system log file", so a few years ago, if you used google to search for weblogs, most of them were website traffic analysis software such as Seacloak, unlike the real weblogs today.

The word "weblog" was used for the first time.

199765438+February, Jorn Barger's "Robot Wisdom weblog" (/netlit/index.html) used the official name of weblog for the first time. Until now, he is still a very influential figure in the field of blog. Jorn Barger's contribution is mainly in form. He changed the meaning of log from impersonal, quasi-objective and mechanical writing close to the log book to free writing close to the travel log book. Metafilter, a community blog site initiated by Matt Haughey, has been widely criticized, but it is indeed more interesting than other blog sites for a long time.

The word "blog" was used for the first time.

At present, the most popular word "blog" is generally recognized as named by Peter Mohoz (/Archives/0000205.html) in 1999. On May 7, 2002/KLOC-0, Peter Merholz recalled in a post entitled "Lexical Games":

I have always liked vocabulary, and I like to look it up in the dictionary whenever I meet new words. I like vocabulary games, and the etymology is more interesting. I didn't expect this hobby to have an impact. 1999 (I can't remember the exact time) In April and May, I posted a post on my homepage: "I decided to pronounce weblog wee'- blog, or abbreviated as' blog'". I didn't think much about it, so I used this word in my post, and then everyone started using email. Keith Dawson classified blogs as "jargon queries". However, if Pyra hadn't released Blogger, 1999 in August, the word might have been said in vain.

Peter Merholz therefore turned blog into a verb, and later he derived the sayings of blog, blogger or ibolog, Blogsphere, etc.

Blog software tool

1999 is also the year when blogs started to grow at a high speed, mainly because there are many free softwares released automatically on the Internet, such as Blogger, Pita, Greymatter, Manila, Diaryland and Big Blog Tool, which often provide free server space. With these, blogs can publish, update and maintain their own websites at zero cost. Blogger produced by Pyra Company in August 1999 is the most popular and influential tool.

A blogger wrote: "When I first used blogger's service, I was greatly shocked. The whole interface can be so easy to use, and the published results are equally touching. If you start using Radio Userland and have some experience, tears will fall directly on the keyboard. It's a bit like the feeling that emacs gave me: omnipotent and easy to use. Will I mainly attribute (or encourage) these software and services? ) the development of CSS and CMS. The former provides an independent foundation for content and layout, while the latter urges programmers to start thinking and provides an interface that makes it easier to update web pages. "

At that time, Pyra had a "dream team" of online publishing software. However, this success did not bring profits to the company. Even under the financial pressure, the company laid off employees in 200 1 year1month, and cut to the limit in one breath: only one full-time employee, ivan Wilhemlms, was one of the founders. The Dream Team also fell apart, and another founder was Meg Hourihan, a New Englander. However, in 2003, Blogger.com was acquired by Google, and it was finally miserable.

What exactly is a blog?

Finally, the most important question is, what is a blog? What is the difference between it and personal websites, communities, online publications, micro-portals, news pages, etc? Because the blog form itself is a combination of various original network expressions, it is unrealistic to define this "mixture" strictly, and it should not be too formalistic. With the development, the forms of blogs will become more and more diversified. Someone wrote: "This phenomenon does exist in blogs. Many news media (for example, Washington post) often use the number of users in blogger.com (currently 750,000) as a guide to emphasize the amazing rise of blogs, regardless of whether their content characteristics conform to blogs. In fact, it is easy to think that using weblog tools, such as movable types, gray matter, b2, blogger, pmachine, etc. They are all blogs. At this point, it doesn't matter whether a blog has its own features, what matters is what software or service it uses. I even think that it is basically true to say that these softwares or services encourage the madness of blogs, but in fact, because of these softwares and services, the whole number and the public have absorbed all similar activities (whether you meet any characteristics of blogs or not) into the black hole of blogs and crossed the boundaries of those trying to classify. "

Because blog is not a pure technological innovation, but a gradually evolving network application. The natural grassroots nature of blog also determines that it is difficult for us to identify an authentic founder of blog, nor can we formally identify who is the "father of blog". Now, no one dares to wear this hat. Otherwise, you will be killed.

A simple chronicle of blogs

1June, 993: The oldest blog prototype-NCSA's "What's New" page (according to his own records).

1September 998 15: Memepool was published, and the earliest link was about "Alex Chiu's Immortal Device".

1999: peter mayle Holtz used the abbreviation "blog" to name a blog, which became the most commonly used term today.

1on may 28th, 999, Cam wrote in his personal blog site Camworld: "Dave Winer founded the earliest blog site, and Camworld showed that he didn't have to hide that he was a model and followed the scripted news."

April 12, 2000: Blogs Egroups' mailing list was terminated, and the debate between Jorn Barger and Dave Winer's founders began to become public.

August 22, 2000: Wine posted on FoRK's mailing list and an argument broke out.

June 5438, 2000+10: Jacob Nelson said, "... ordinary blog sites don't want to see it."

/10 2000 June 2000 14: Dave Winer hinted that his script news was the earliest blog site, and then he gracefully attributed this honor to his respected predecessor, Tim Berners Lee, the inventor of www.com.

165438+20001October: However, Winer soon found another crown for herself. Script news changed the slogan of the website to: the longest-running blog website on the Internet, 1 April 19971up.

65438+February 2000 17:UserLand released SuperOpenDirectory, hoping to become a factual tool for directory creation.

2001September 1 1: The World Trade Center was attacked by terrorists, and blogs became an important source of important information and personal experiences of the disaster. Since then, blogs have officially entered the mainstream society.

Three stages of blog development (prehistoric stage, primary stage and growth stage)

To sum up, to be precise, the history of blog is as long as the World Wide Web (WWW, or Web). The earliest blog should be Tim Berners Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web (the predecessor of his first website). This is a small software company. In order to develop a complex groupware product, the three founders wrote a small software to keep communication and cooperation with each other through blogs. Later, they thought this simple gadget was also very useful to others, so in August, 1999, the blogger software was released online for free. Only a few dozen people can be counted as bloggers before. As a result, just like dry wood meets fire, many people use this software as a weapon to enter the blog team. Blog teams began to increase rapidly. Pyra is also famous for this little software that doesn't care at all. In short, this stage is mainly a group of IT enthusiasts, website designers, news lovers, unconscious and theoretical system. A certain group has not yet formed, and it does not have the social influence of a certain phenomenon. In the process of silent evolution, there are also some events and figures that have played a very critical role in enlightenment and leading. Prepare for the blog revolution.

The second stage (around 2000-2006): the primary stage, or the rising period.

By 2000, blogs began to appear in thousands and became a hot concept. 9 1 1 event is an important moment in the history of blog development. It is this terrorist attack that makes people have a new understanding of the fragility of life and the important, most direct and effective way of information transmission between people. Therefore, an important blog category-songbird blog is booming. It can be said that the most authentic and vivid description of the 9 1 1 incident is not in The New York Times, but in the blog logs of the survivors. The deepest reflection and discussion on things comes not from any famous reporter, but from many ordinary blogs.

According to incomplete statistics, up to now, the number of blogs consciously practiced in the world has reached 500,000 to 6,543.8+0,000. Although compared with more than 300 million netizens, it is still insignificant. However, the influence of these blogs has already exceeded his original scope as an individual and even as his own industry. It began to attract the strong attention of mainstream media, and obviously felt the impact of the rise of blogs on traditional media. At the same time, blogs in various professional fields such as "like mushrooms after rain" have surfaced one after another and become the focus of this major. In addition to the United States, blogs in European countries such as Britain, Hungary and Germany have also formed a momentum. Asia, including China, is also beginning to feel the pulse of blogs. It is estimated that in the last year or two, blog will become one of the most important new phenomena during the Internet depression, which has aroused the concern of the whole society.

The third stage (2006-): growth stage, or development stage.

Predicting the future is always a stupid thing, especially predicting the Internet. It's really too early to draw a conclusion about the future of blogs! And it is very controversial. However, according to our research and judgment, we still take the risk to agree with such a bold judgment:

By 2006, as a new media phenomenon, the influence of blog may exceed that of traditional media.

As a knowledge dissemination mode in the professional field, blog will become one of the most influential figures in this field;

As a social tool, blog will surpass e-mail, BBS and ICQ(IM) and become a more important way of communication between people.

Obviously, the above is mainly a simple division of the development stages of global blogs (centered on the United States). In China, like all internet revolutions, it continues to maintain a certain "lag". Blogs are no exception. The development stage of China is basically one stage behind. In other words, the development of blog in China has just entered the enlightenment period, and it may take 2-3 years to enter the real primary stage, that is, the rising period.

However, the members of "Digital Forum" who have been paying the closest attention to the development of the network have been aware of this since around 2000 and have paid great attention to it. In 2002, it began to act as a pioneer in promoting and advocating "blog idea" in China. "Blog China" (www.blogchina.com) website is such a product.

Although "blog" was officially given a Chinese name, it was just completed in 2002. However, in China, it is Sun Jianhua who has been studying new media who pays attention to, tracks and systematically expounds the imagination of "blog". In many articles in 1998 and 1999, he began to deal with many blog phenomena, and the blog theory completed in August 2002 was the first article in China that systematically and comprehensively expounded the blog revolution.

References:

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