A blog (a contraction of the term weblog) is a type of website. It is usually maintained by an individual and will have regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order.
The word “blogging” means maintaining or adding content to a blog. People blog for many reasons. Blogs may provide commentary or news on a particular subject while others are like personal online diaries. In most cases, a blog includes text, images, and links to other blogs, Web pages, and other media related to its topic. Most blogs have an interactive format to leave comments.
Some blogs may focus on art (art log), photographs (photo blog), sketches (sketch blog), videos (v log), music (MP3 blog), and audio (podcasting). Micro blogging is another type of blogging. It features blogs with very short posts.
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The personal blog is the most common kind of blog. Personal bloggers spend a lot of time on their blog posts, even if their blog is never read by others. Blogs offer a means to reflect on life or works of art. Few personal blogs gain widespread fame and attention but some personal blogs do manage to win a good following. Some bloggers even land book contracts like the journalist Meenakshi Reddy who wrote the book, “You Are Here”.
Micro blogging seeks to capture a moment in time. Sites, such as Twitter, allow bloggers to share thoughts and feelings instantaneously with friends and family. It is much faster than e-mailing or writing. This form of social media is very popular with an online generation which is too strapped for time to keep in touch.
There are corporate blogs as well which are maintained for business purposes. Such blogs are either used internally to enhance the communication and culture in a corporation or externally for marketing, branding or public relations purposes. Question blogging is a kind of blog that answers questions. Questions can be submitted in the form of a submittal form, or through email or other means such as telephone or VOIP.
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A blog which comprises links is called a link blog. Blogs with shorter posts and mixed media types are called tumble blogs. Blogs that are written on typewriters and then scanned are called typecast or typecast blogs. A rare type of blog hosted on the Gopher Protocol is known as a Ph log.
Blogs may focus on particular subjects, giving rise to political blogs, travel blogs, house blogs, fashion blogs, project blogs, education blogs, niche blogs, classical music blogs, quizzing blogs and legal blogs (also referred to as blows) or dream logs. A blog used for the sole purpose of spamming is known as a Sp log but it is not a legitimate one.
The collective community of all blogs is known as the blogosphere. It is not unusual for the media to use discussions in the blogosphere to discover public opinion on various issues. There are blog search engines to search blog contents. These include Blog lines, Blog Scope, and Technocratic. Technocratic is one of the most popular blog search engines. It provides current information on both popular searches and tags used to categorize blog postings.
There are many, online communities that connect people to blogs and bloggers to other bloggers. Some of these are Blog Catalog, My Blog Log, and YUL BIog. Many blogs also carry advertisements which financially benefit the blogger or promote the blogger’s favourite causes. Blogs have become so popular that they have led to the rise of “fake blogs”. In such blogs, a company may create a fictional blog as a marketing tool to promote its products.