[TWIAR] The History of Blogs

[Greg Williams]

*If anyone knows what a "glog" was, or more on "wearable computers" I'd 
be more than happy to hear about it. - Greg

http://www.juiceenewsdaily.com/0505/news/history_blogs.html?1133412833296

The History of Blogs
*
(JND <http://www.juiceenewsdaily.com/index.html>) - Electronic 
communities existed before internetworking. For example the AP wire was, 
in effect, similar to a large chat room where there were "wire fights" 
and electronic conversations. Another pre-digital electronic community 
Amateur (or "ham") radio allowed individuals who set up their own 
broadcast equipment to communicate with others directly. Ham radio also 
had logs called "glogs" that were personal diaries made using wearable 
computers in the early 1980s.

Before blogging became popular, digital communities took many forms, 
including Usenet, email lists and bulletin boards. In the 1990s Internet 
forum software, such as WebX, created running conversations with 
threads. Many of the terms from weblogging were created in these earlier 
media.

Diarists kept journals on the internet: some called themselves 
escribitionists. A notable example was game programmer John Carmark's 
widely read journal, published via the finger protocol.

For example, "troll," a term for a person who disrupts a discussion by 
posting messages to trick other users into reacting in hostility or 
aggravation, dates back to Usenet. "Thread," in reference to consecutive 
messages on one specific topic of discussion, comes from email lists and 
Usenet as well, and "to post" from electronic bulletin boards, borrowing 
usage directly from their corkboard predecessors.

Blogging begins

Blogging combined the personal web page with tools to make linking to 
other pages easier, specifically blogrolls and TrackBacks, as well as 
comments and afterthoughts. This way, instead of a few people being in 
control of threads on a forum, or anyone able to start threads on a 
list, there was a moderating effect that was the personality of the 
weblog's owner. Justin Hall, who began eleven years of personal blogging 
in 1994 while a student at Swarthmore College, is generally recognized 
as one of the earliest bloggers.

The term "weblog" was coined by Jorn Barger in December 1997. The 
shorter version, "blog," was coined by Peter Merholz, who, in April or 
May of 1999, broke the word weblog into the phrase "we blog" in the 
sidebar of his weblog. This was interpreted as a short form of the noun 
and also as a verb, to blog, meaning "to edit one's weblog or a post to 
one's weblog." Usage spread during 1999, with the word being further 
popularized by the near-simultaneous arrival of the first hosted weblog 
tools: Evan Williams and Meg Hourihan's company Pyra Labs launched 
Blogger (which was purchased by Google in 2004) and Paul Kedrosky's 
GrokSoup. As of March 2003, the Oxford English Dictionary included the 
terms weblog, weblogging and weblogger in their dictionary.

One of the pioneers of the tools that make blogging more than merely 
websites that scroll is Dave Winer. One of his most important 
contributions was the creation of servers which weblogs would ping to 
show that they had updated. Blog reading utilities, such as Blogrolling, 
use the aggregated update data to show a user when their favorite blogs 
have new posts.


Blogging's rise to influence
After the September 11, 2001 attacks, many blogs which supported the 
U.S. "War On Terrorism" quickly gained readership among a public 
searching for information to understand that event; many new blogs in 
the same genre sprang up in this environment. By 2002, many of these 
were supporting the policy of an invasion of Iraq to remove Saddam 
Hussein from power (based on U.S. policy since 1998) and eliminate 
supposed stockpiles of WMDs. These "war bloggers" came primarily, though 
not exclusively, from the right side of the political spectrum, and 
included Instapundit. The term was later broadened to include all 
bloggers whose focus was the war in Iraq, which spread representation 
across the political spectrum. By the spring of 2003, Forbes Magazine 
used "war blogger" in this larger sense when listing the "best warblogs."

The first blog-driven controversy was probably the fall of Trent Lott, 
who had remarked, at a party honoring Strom Thurmond, that Thurmond's 
leadership abilities may have made him a good president. Since Thurmond 
had spent much of his early political career sympathetic to 
white-supremacists, Lott's statements were conveyed in the media to be 
racist. In the aftermath, bloggers such as Josh Marshall strove to 
demonstrate that his remarks were not an isolated misstatement, by 
finding evidence including quotes from other previous speeches of Lott's 
which were taken to be racist—their efforts kept the story "alive" in 
the press until a critical mass of disapproval forced Lott to resign his 
position as Senate Majority Leader.

By this point blogging was enough of a phenomenon that how-to manuals 
had begun to appear, primarily focusing on using the tools, or creating 
content. But the importance of a blog as a way of building an electronic 
community had also been written on, as had the potential for blogs as a 
means of publicizing other projects. Established schools of journalism 
began researching the blogging phenomenon, and noting the differences 
between current practice of journalism and blogging.

Since 2003, weblogs have gained increasing notice and coverage for their 
role in breaking, shaping or spinning news stories. One of the most 
significant events was the sudden emergence of an interest in the Iraq 
war, which saw both left-wing and right-wing bloggers taking measured 
and passionate points of view that did not reflect the traditional 
left-right divide. The blogs which gathered news on Iraq, both left and 
right, exploded in popularity, and Forbes magazine covered the 
phenomenon. The use of blogs by established politicians and political 
candidates—particularly Howard Dean and Wesley Clark—to express opinions 
on the war and other issues of the day, cemented their role as a news 
source. Meanwhile, the increasing number of experts who blogged, such as 
Daniel Drezner and J. Bradford DeLong, gave blogs a built-in source of 
in-depth analysis.

The Iraq war was the first "blog war" in another way: bloggers in 
Baghdad gained wider readership, and one (Salam Pax) published a book of 
his blog. Blogs also arose amongst soldiers serving in the Iraq war. 
Such milblogs have given readers a new perspective on the realities of 
war. Reading the thoughts of people who were "on the spot" provided a 
counterpoint, if not a counterweight, to official news sources. Blogs 
were often used to draw attention to obscure news sources, for example 
posting links to the traffic cameras in Madrid as a huge anti-terrorism 
demonstration filled the streets in the wake of the M11 attacks. 
Bloggers would often provide nearly instant commentary on televised 
events, which became a secondary meaning of the word "blogging," such as 
"I am blogging Rice's testimony," i.e., "I am posting my reactions to 
Rice's testimony to my blog as I watch it."

By the end of 2003 top rated blogs Instapundit, Daily Kos and Atrios 
were receiving over 75,000 unique visitors per day.

Blogging goes mainstream
In 2004, the role of blogs became increasingly mainstream, as political 
consultants, news services and candidates began using them as tools for 
outreach and opinion formation. Even politicians not actively involved 
in a campaign such as Tom Watson, a UK Labour Party MP, began to use 
blogging as a means for creating a bond with constituents and creating a 
channel for their ideas and opinions. Minnesota Public Radio broadcast a 
program by Christopher Lydon and Matt Stoller called "The Blogging of 
the President," which covered the transformation in politics that 
blogging seemed to presage. The Columbia Journalism Review began regular 
coverage of blogs and blogging. Anthologies of blog pieces began to 
reach print, and blogging personalities began appearing on radio and 
television. In the summer of that year both the Democratic and 
Republican National Conventions credentialed bloggers, and blogs became 
a standard part of the publicity arsenal, with mainstream programs, such 
as Chris Matthews' Hardball, forming their own blogs. Merriam-Webster's 
Dictionary declared 'blog' as the word of the year in 2004.

Blogs were some of the driving forces behind the "Rathergate" scandal 
involving Dan Rather of CBS and some memos used on the show 60 Minutes 
II. Within 72 hours a coordinated group of bloggers had built a case 
that they were likely forgeries. The evidence presented eventually 
created such concern over the issue that CBS was forced to address the 
situation and make an apology for their inadequate reporting techniques. 
This is viewed by many bloggers as the point of blogs' acceptance by the 
mass media as a source of news. It also showed how blogs could keep the 
pressure on an established news source, forcing defenses and then a 
retraction of the original story.

Blogging is also used now to break consumer complaints and 
vulnerabilities of products, in the way that Usenet and email lists once 
were. One such example is the vulnerability of Kryptonite 2000 locks.

Bloggers have also moved over to other media. Atrios, Glenn Reynolds and 
Markos Moulitsas Zúniga appear on the radio, and Ana Marie Cox, better 
known as Wonkette, appears on television. Hugh Hewitt is an example of a 
media personality who has moved in the other direction, adding to his 
reach in "old media" by being an influential blogger.

In January 2005, Fortune magazine listed Peter Rojas, Xeni Jardin, Ben 
Trott and Mena Trott, Jonathan Schwartz, Jason Goldman, Robert Scoble, 
and Jason Calacanis as eight bloggers that business people "could not 
ignore."


Blogging and culture
Blogging however, was as much about technology as politics, and the 
proliferation of tools to run blogs and the communities around them 
connected blogging with the Open Source movement. Writers such as Larry 
Lessig and David Weinberger used their blogs to promote not just 
blogging in specific, but different social models in general. One of the 
running discussions within journalism and blogging is what "blogging" 
means for the way news "happens" and is covered. This leads to questions 
over intellectual property and the role of the mass media in society. 
Many bloggers differentiate themselves from the mainstream media, while 
others are members of that media working through a different channel.

Many bloggers have large agendas, and see blogging as part of Open 
Source Politics, or the ability of people to participate more directly 
in politics, helping to frame the debate. Whereas institutions see 
blogging as a means of "getting around the filter" and pushing message 
directly to the public.


Creating and publishing weblogs
Since their introduction, a number of software packages have appeared to 
allow people to create their own weblog. Blog hosting sites and Web 
services to provide editing via the Web have proliferated. Common 
examples include GreatestJournal, Pitas, Blogger, LiveJournal and Xanga.

Many more advanced bloggers prefer to generate their blogs by using 
server-side software tools such as Nucleus CMS, Movable Type, bBlog, 
WordPress, b2evolution, boastMachine and Serendipity to publish on their 
own Web site or a third party site, or to host a group of blogs for a 
company or school. Such programs provide greater flexibility and power, 
but require more knowledge. If they provide a Web interface for editing, 
server-based systems make it easy for travelers to create and edit text; 
many travelers like to produce their travelblogs from Internet cafes 
while they travel around the globe.

In addition, some people program their own blogs from scratch by using 
PHP, CGI, or other server side software. While these are much more 
difficult to create, they add a maximum potential for creativity.

Two features which are common to blogging are "blogrolls" and 
"commenting" or "feedback."

A blogroll is a list of other blogs that are linked separately from any 
article. This is one means by which a blogger creates a context for his 
blog, by listing other blogs that are similar to his/her own, or blogs 
the blogger thinks may be of relevance to users. It is also used as 
measure of the number of citations a blog has, and is used to rank "blog 
authority" in a manner similar to the way that Google uses hard coded 
HTML linking to create "page rank." Still another use of the "blogroll" 
is reciprocal linking: bloggers agree to link to each other, or link to 
another blog in hopes of getting a link in return.

Another central, and sometimes controversial, aspect of blogging is the 
use of a feedback comment systems. A comment system allows users to post 
their own comments on an article or "thread." Some blogs do not have 
comments, or have a closed commenting system which requires approval 
from those running the blog. For other bloggers, including several very 
prominent ones, comments are the crucial feature which distinguishes a 
"true" blog from other kinds of blogs. Commenting can either be built 
into the software, or added by using a service such as HaloScan. If a 
blog has regular commenters, this is referred to as the blog's community.

Tools such as Ecto and w.bloggar allow users to maintain their Web 
hosted blog without the need to be online while composing or editing 
posts. Enhancements to weblog technology continue to be developed, such 
as the TrackBack feature introduced by Movable Type in 2002 and 
subsequently adopted by other software companies to enable automatic 
notification between websites of related content—such as a post on a 
particular topic or one which responds to a post on another blog. bBlog 
has gone as far as implementing threaded trackbacks on comments, and 
comments on trackbacks.

Blogs with features such as TrackBack are credited with complicating 
search engine page ranking techniques. Integrating these into search 
engines has proven to be a challenge, and has been used to deliberately 
"push" page rankings. However, as one Google executive remarked, it is 
the search engine's job to find the ways that a website represents a 
"vote" for another website.

Web hosting companies and online publications also provide blog creation 
tools, such as Salon, Tripod, Bravenet and America Online, which calls 
its subscriber blogs "journals."