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November 18, 2004
If you are new to blogs...
When I'm telling friends that Kerry and I have a begun a blog and that they should visit this site, I'm getting a lot of questions:
What is blog? a weblog? a web log? what are you saying?
Is it really just a journal? a discussion board? a website by another name?
And the ultimate curiousity - can you make any money that way?
We will get more questions I'm sure, and the answers will develop further over time, but perhaps more introduction is needed. I found this paper helpful - Understanding Weblogs: a communicative perspective, - here are a few key paragraphs:
Since the turn of the millennium a new genre on the internet has gained a lot of interest, the weblog. In short one could say that a blog is a special kind of website which is updated frequently with new postings and published in reverse chronological order (the most recent posting is on top of the page). Since there is free software available, everyone with a connection to the internet has the ability to publish a weblog. That means that there is a wide variety of blogs that can be read on the WWW.
At first sight blogging, publishing on a blog, seems merely a way to show one’s own opinions and ideas. What is different from a blog in comparison to traditional home pages on which people share their interests and hobby’s, is that from a communicative perspective a weblog not only transmits information through the internet, but also takes on a receiving role. Many bloggers give their readers the opportunity to respond to the different postings and get involved in conversations through a weblog. That makes a blog a different way to communicate with others than traditional web pages do.
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When we would compare blogs to something that happens in the real world, we could perhaps best compare them to ‘Speaker’s corner’ in London. This is a corner of Hyde Park where people can meet up and discuss things that matter to them. (Wikipedia) What usually happens is that someone climbs on a box, starts talking about a subject and other people, passers by, can start a discussion with the person speaking. The place is freely accessible, anyone can start and join a discussion regardless of education or origin. Looking at blogs we could say that by blogging someone climbs on a virtual box to tell a story. This story attracts the attention of passers by on the internet, for instance by using a search engine. People read the weblog just as passers by at Speaker’s Corner can stop for a while and listen to what is being said. People who are interested can react on the things that are written through a comment function or by writing about the topic on one’s own blog.
What happens in both cases, at Speaker’s Corner and in blogs, is that through dissemination dialogue will be achieved.
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By seeding the message in as much people as you can reach, the chances of reaching those that are interested and willing to receive get bigger. The discovery of the written word offers an opportunity to overcome physical distance so that it’s no longer needed to meet all people face-to-face, as well as text can overcome time distance. The written word can be seen as the first type of mass communication, taking it’s flight after the invention of the art of printing.
Through blogging one starts with dissemination on the internet. The author writes something and publishes it for others to read. There will be readers, varying from some to thousands, just as there are listeners at Speaker’s Corner. Allowing readers to comment on the written entries makes it possible that conversation between the reader and the blogger, or between readers, can ensue.
Looking at weblogs in a communicative way we could therefore define a weblog as follows: The weblog, or blog, is a webpage on which the author publishes pieces with the intention to start conversation.emphasis mine
Posted by Mary at November 18, 2004 11:07 AM