What does a blog mean? What's the difference with "log"?

Classification: Computer/Network >> Internet

Analysis:

Blog profile

Blog or Weblog, an extremely simple and convenient online personal publishing form, enables any netizen to have his own personal website and write freely in a few minutes. However, the simpler IT is, the harder it is to define it, and people's understanding of blog is also varied: blog stands for "news media 3.0": old media → new media → mutual media (Mo, the most famous IT columnist in Silicon Valley); Blog is the fourth way of network communication after email, BBS and ICQ(IM). Blog is a person's unedited voice (Dave Wenner); Blog is an independent thought bubble on the Internet. Blog is an open source movement of media (Fang Xingdong); Blog is "Personal Publishing 2.0" (Sun Jianhua); Blog is an online coffee shop (blog manual) that talks in words ... Paul Andrews, a famous IT journalist and columnist, believes that the rise of blogs and other online news is partly due to the rapid decline of the credibility of media giants, who try to overthrow the "gatekeeper" of traditional media: "A new type of journalist is emerging, and they are based on" original materials "directly from news sources. These reporters are doing a new test ... this is a retaliatory destruction of bureaucratic media ... Blogs have changed the nature of information flow from personal communication to public communication ... Anyone can publish their own works by pressing the' publish' button, which will change the traditional media publishing mode.

Excerpt from an article by Dr. Fang Xingdong, the founder of China Blog and the founder of Chinese translation of Blog, on the brief history and basic historical facts of blog development. 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 (blogchina 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 (links/vita/web/story) is also one of the earliest blog site prototypes.

The earliest blog prophet

Secondly, who was the earliest blogger? William Gibson, a famous science fiction writer, predicted professional blogs in 1996 (Salon Magazine/Weekly/Gibson2961kloc-0/4): "Before long, someone will browse the Internet for you, select content and make a living. There is indeed such a demand. "

The earliest blog

Dave Winer, a Userland company, started to run Scripting news from 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, it was Jorn Barger who established the basic appearance of today's blog site at the end of 1997 (the original appearance at that time can be seen on the Internet: roboisdom/).

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, the official name of "Roboisdom/LIT/Index" operated by Jorn Barger was first used. 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 Me/Archives/* * * * * * * * * 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 was acquired by Google, which was finally a painful experience.

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 blog itself is a combination of various original network expressions, it is unrealistic to define this "mixture" strictly, and we should not get too caught up in it. 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, * * *) often use the number of blogger (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 "What's New Page" of archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/Sofare/Mosaic/Docs/whats-new NCSA, the oldest prototype of blog, mainly lists the indexes of emerging websites on the Web. This page was updated from1June 1993 to1June 1996.

1994 65438+1October: Justin Hall started "Justin's home page" (Justin's personal webpage), and soon it began to collect all kinds of underground secret links. This important personal website can be regarded as one of the earliest blog websites.

1 April, 19971day: Dave Winer begins to publish script news. This website evolved from the early Dave, the earliest1994101October 7th.

1997 65438+ February: Jorn Barger first used the term weblog to describe personal websites that have comments and links and are constantly updated.

1May 7, 998: petermerholz began to publish the website Peter Me (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. His first website, info.cern.ch (of course, it no longer exists now, but has been preserved as an antique) was actually the first blog website, because the content in it was to list various websites appearing on the Internet. From 1993 to 1996, the "Latest News" column of NCSA and Netscape also took shape as a blog site. Of course, we attribute all this to the "prehistoric period" of blogs, and the real history of blogs can start from the middle and late 1990s.

The first stage (from the mid-1990s to the end of 1990s): the budding stage, or enlightenment stage.

Tracing the source of blog is undoubtedly an arduous task. Some people think that Justin Hall's infamous "online diary" in 1994 can be regarded as an early form of blog. This guy posted his naked test online in time, which attracted a lot of attention. Some people say that the online travel diary published by Jesse James Garrett in Camworld on 1998 was the fuse to ignite the blog community, and blog has become a new trend since then. But more people think that the real source of blog is Pyra (the predecessor of blogger now), 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. As a result, an important blog category-songbird blog has flourished. It can be said that the truest and most vivid description of 9 1 1 event is not in * * *, but in the blog logs of those 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" 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.

blog

A complete history of blog annotation

Includes a timeline of major events in the history of blogs, as well as links to media reports on this phenomenon.

Chyme/Super/Blog

Blog in the past

Interview with Evan WIlliams, co-founder of Pyra, in which he discussed the history of Pyra and its flagship product Blogger.

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Appear in news reports

An impressive collection of links to blog posts, arranged in chronological order.

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Media coverage of blogs

Regularly update the list of newspaper and magazine articles about blogs.

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The history of blogs

A brief history of weblogs seen by long-time blogger Dave Weiner. Includes a list of early blogs and links to blog articles.

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Blog: History and Prospect

This article covers the period from 1998 to 2000 and provides an excellent overview of the phenomenon of network logging.

Rebecca Brad/Prose/Blog _ History

working table

Rogers Cadenhead studied the history of the controversial RSS syndication format.

Cadenhead/workbench/stories/May 2, 2003

(formerly blogchina/new/source/288)