What the Heck is a Blog?

I wrote the following earlier today on an old favorite MU* in an attempt to entice a friend there into the blogosphere:

ok ok, what the heck is a blog and how does one get one? LOL... is it a website, most here have those but me, dunno how to do it...

That's a good question that I asked myself for a long time as I saw blogs becoming more and more popular and not understanding why. Here is the answer I came up with. A blog has three necessary elements:

1. A web site with an owner dedicated to making frequent updates with current information or commentary. The site is usually managed with a software package that eases updates and presents the most recent updates to site visitors in a format similar to newspaper articles.
2. A group of regular readers of the site who frequently add their own comments on the author's posts or on other readers' comments, which is also usually facilitated by the blog software.
3. An amorphous cluster of other blogs that are frequently read by the site owner, or read and/or written by the blog readers, which often trigger discussions on the blog in question. Again, the blog software usually makes it easy to link articles on different blogs with hyperlinks.

It is the synergy between these three elements that makes blogs more than just frequently updated web sites and leads to the formation of online communities as dynamic as MOOs were in their glory days.

The cross-over between blogs and main-stream media is a topic that is being widely discussed that shows the potential of blog culture, though I won't repeat the discussion here.

If you are curious about blogs, take a look at mine ([you're reading it now]) as an example. Follow the links I have to other interesting blogs, then follow THEIR links, the the links on the next set of blogs... until you find yourself immersed in the blogosphere. Of course, Sturgeon's Law, that 90% of everything is crap applies, but if you look for a while, you're almost sure to find a corner of blogspace that matches your interests and sensibilities.

[A plug for our host...]If you want to try blogging yourself, www.blogger.com offers no-cost sites that come with good basic blog managment tools and a selection of decent-looking, easily-customized templates.

The above makes me sound like an evangelist, but I'm really just starting to dabble. After you look a little, you will find people who seem to eat, drink, sleep, and live for blogging. It can be as addictive as MOOing.

See you in blogspace. [If you're reading this, then welcome to blogspace.]