A search in older dictionaries would offer no assistance to the meaning of the word "blog". The word was coined in May 1999 as a contraction of the term "web log", which is a website that is maintained with regular entries that describe and comment about events. The word "blog" can also be used as a verb, as in "I'm blogging this on my blog."
The blog traces its roots to the online communities like Usenet and BBS (Bulletin Board Systems), where information is shared and conversations took place among users. Then-conventional diaries soon adopted the online version as the new convention. The online version of the diary has several advantages over its predecessor; not only it dispenses the need of using a pen to write, blogs are not quota-limited, hence the users will not face the problem of running out of fresh pages to blog. Furthermore, blogs can be password-protected to avoid unauthorized reading.
Blogs are not exactly diaries, whereby information and content are kept confidential. Content on blogs are usually made public and people all over the world can view it. As such, the blog provides a window for friends or followers of a blog user (commonly known as "blogger") to receive updates about him or her.
In a typical blog, you will find the entries arranged in reverse chronological order, a small photo or video album displayed by the side, links to previous posts as well as links to friends' blogs and websites. In some blogs, you may also find a tag board or chat box, where readers can leave comments in response to the bloggers' entries.
Are you ready for the creation of your very own blog?
ALL YOU NEED: AN EXISTING EMAIL ACCOUNT
Creating a blog for yourself is fairly simple; all you need is to have an existing email account, by visiting any of the blog space providers' websites like <www.blogger.com>, <www.wordpress.com> and <www.xanga.com>, click the tab to start or create your blog, and you will be brought to a page where you fill in your email address to create an account. After the account creation, check your email for the activation email to activate your blog account. Next, you will be required to name your blog, which can be a single word or a phrase. After the naming, you will proceed with choosing a template for your blog.
BLOG CUSTOMIZATION
The world today is about customization, you want your blog to reflect something closer to your character, and you may want to find a template that suits your taste. These templates are commonly known as blogskins, which are like the skins you use for your digital media player, you may change it anytime you wish. For the wide selection of blogskins, you may find <www.blogskins.com> useful, and instructions on changing the template according to different blog space providers are also available.
It is all right to skip the step of changing blogskins if you do not mind the dull and uninteresting standard templates given to you, but it is always never too late to change it at a later time if you are not too familiar with the procedures now. Once a template is up, you are ready to publish your very first post!
YOUR FIRST POST
From the dashboard page where you can manage your blog, you can start writing to your blog by clicking the "New Post" tab. Once the tab is clicked, you will be brought to another page where you only need to type a title and start blogging! Once everything is done, you may want to label the entry according anything you like (since this is your blog). This labeling helps in sorting the entries you have, so that finding them later is easier. Alternatively, you may choose to save the entry by clicking "Save" if you wish to complete the entry later; otherwise, by clicking "Publish"; your entry is up and on its way to meet the world.
Future posts follow the sequence of logging in to your account, click the "New Post" tab and start writing. Pictures and videos can be embedded into the entry to add more life to your recount, and to add them into your entries; you may click the icon representing the different executions and start embedding your pictures and videos into your posts. You can also edit previous posts by clicking the "Edit Posts" link, and you will navigate to a page that shows a list of all your previous posts. Click on the one you wish to edit and publish it after editing, the edited version will replace the old post.
The blog still retain some of the features of a diary; by providing password protect to your blog or blog entries, it provides some privacy so that only you and your closest friends can assess these personal content.
SEARCHING FOR BLOGS
As publishing posts in a blog is made so simple, there are so many blogs and blog entries found in the World Wide Web that makes reading them all in a lifetime is impossible. Therefore, to find the relevant content to read is an important skill. Displayed at the top of the page of <www.wordpress.com> is a search box right at the top of the web page, you can type search words or specific search phrases into the search box to find for blogs that contained the search word you entered. And within a blog you have found, to search for relevant content, you can type into the search box that is usually located at the top of the web page for the keywords.
SUBSCRIBING TO BLOGS
Once you have found a blog with content that interests you, you can follow or subscribe to the blog by adding the blog via the dashboard or clicking the "Subscribe" link that is normally found at the top of the page. A point to note is that following or subscribing to a blog requires you to sign up an account with the blog space provider, for example, you need to be a blogger on <www.blogger.com> in order to follow blogs on <www.blogger.com>. Following or subscribing to blogs is like adding a web page to your web browser's "Favourites" list; it allows quicker access. Although adding blog pages directly to the "Favourites" list of your web browser also helps in locating them fast, but it do not always bring you to the latest blog entries by your favourite blogger.
SOME BLOG EXAMPLES
There are several areas of interest worth mentioning when we talk about blogs. One of such is food. You can find blogs that provides information about food and eateries of a particular country. One of such blogs is <www.foodblog.sg>, and it gives reviews to restaurants and eateries in Singapore.
Health is the concern of everyone, and this blog <http://areufit.wordpress.com> gives excellent tips on maintaining health and fitness.
If you are a fan of Korean pop music and dramas, <http://koreanentertainmentportal.blogspot.com> is a not-to-be-missed! It provides regular updates on the happenings in the Korean entertainment arena.
There are also blogs which people blog to entertain themselves and other people, one of them is at <www.xiaxue.blogspot.com>, and such blogs usually have mixed contents and should not be taken too seriously.
There are several types of blogs, and if taking pictures with a camera is your interest, you may sign up for a photoblog account at <www.flickr.com> and I am introducing this photoblogger who put up excellent photographs at <www.flickr.com/photos/chromecrayon/>.
Not only pictures and photographs, blogs can also come in the video form, video blogs are known as vblogs. A very popular vblog space provider is <www.youtube.com>, and if you keen in the discipline of elemental chemistry, <http://www.youtube.com/user/periodicvideos> provides much helpful information you would love to know.
Many bloggers sell products using blogs, some of them may be located via <www.blogshoppin.com> and there are simpler ones like < http://rpblousejackets.blogspot.com/>.
THE BLOGOSPHERE
The community of bloggers, called blogosphere, is a very large community; visit any of the blog space providers and do some blog-hopping (reading from blog to blog), to find joy in reading blogs and realize how interesting this blogosphere is. I make new discoveries from reading blogs, I would not have discovered that Chinese opera in Taiwan has evolved into an action-packed performance as in <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mqzco2d4Rw> and <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5p8gbZrZZlQ > if I am not a blogger.
Discover more of the world, Explore the blogosphere.