I recently started blogging at this blog. When I informed some of my friends that I have started a blog, the first thing they did was to ask a question. Neither about the topic of my blog nor about its address. The first question they asked was 'What is a Blog'?
Upon hearing this, I was for some time left astonished; whether on the simplicity of the question or my inability to convey to them what a blog was, that I cannot tell. After trying for hours to make it clear to them what a blog was, I came up with the idea of writing this post. So here I am writing a post describing what is a blog.
The idea of a Web Log (or just blog) in its simplest description is to provide an electronic alternative to a personal diary. But, unlike personal diaries, blogs are intended to be public. Public in the sense that they can be viewed by anyone. However, this is not always the case. Your blog is totally your domain and it is up to you whether you want it to be public or only limit it to the users you choose.
Diary Blogs are not the only type of blogs. A blog can be focused on only one topic like HTML in which case it is called a niche blog or be totally random in which case it is referred to as a personal blog or even a random blog. As earlier said, there is no limit upon the topic of your blog.
Then there are Photo blogs and Video blogs too which contain content only in the form photos and videos respectively. Blogs are not limited to individuals only. They are also used by companies to inform latest developments within the companies and also as a method to improve their public relations. Other common types of blogs are Art blogs and Music blogs.
Because of the ease of setting up a blog and its ability to transcend borders, blogging has evolved drastically in the past decade. Blogs have become a great way of socializing too. Blogs serve as a platform to showcase a person's thought to the online world.
Blogs are commonly updated regularly. This might probably be the only difference between a blog and a website. Websites tend to be static in nature and blogs on the other hand are dynamic in nature. A website can comprise of only a blog or have a blog as its part.
Regular Updates are not just limited to blogging; due to the preference search engines give to regularly updated content, most websites are updated regularly and the difference between blogs and websites is narrowing. It is becoming tougher and tougher to differentiate between the two.
However, the availability of a commenting system presently serves as the biggest differentiation between a blog and a website.
Now after this post, may be you might now more clearly understand what a blog is.
