The Smart Girl's Guide to Blogging

A blog, or weblog as some call them, is simply a special kind of website. The main page of each blog consists of the most recent entries with the newest at the top. It will also usually include an archive on the side, as well as links to the authors favorite blogs or websites. They sometimes include a biography of the author, or a link to one.

Typically, each entry is simply a chunk of text, a paragraph or two, that usually includes links to other pages, audio clips, and the occasional video clip.

Unless the author has disabled them, you can also leave comments on the entries. (Thankfully you can limit who can leave comments and what they can leave.)

The verb to blog simply refers to the act of posting entries to a blog. However, the term blogosphere has come to mean the ENTIRE phenomenon of blogging - all the blogs, all the links between the blogs, as well as all the topics being written about blogs.

BLOG was Merrian Webster's Word of the Year for 2004. This title is given to the one word searched for the most on their website. Here's the definition:

* Blog: noun [short for weblog] (1999) : A web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks provided by the writer.

So, you may be wondering what blogs are for, hmm? Most people use blogging essentially as online diaries or journals. Simply a place to post musings and record day-to-day happenings, perhaps to keep friends and family up to date.

However, many bloggers focus on online developments rather than personal ones. Their blogs consist mainly of posts about -and links to- other websites, including other blogs.

Then, theres looking at free blogs versus paid blog hosts.