The Short History Of Blogging

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Kia Ora, from New Zealand Friends and colleagues.

I have been writing 2000 word article on the emerging employment landscape in light of the current crisis and while I was writing it I started thinking about where Blogging came from.

I had a vague idea but it was just that, vague! I enjoy knowing about the history of my pastimes and activities so I did a bit of digging and that I would share.

I hope that you enjoy and find something in it to interest you......

Shorter Than you Might Think!


Blogs seem to have been here forever and they are everywhere; news blogs, topic-based blogs related work and hobbies, and of course, purely entertainment blogs. Most people seem to have at least one favorite blog that they follow. But Blogs actually have a quite short history in the bigger scheme of things, only really coming into their own at the turn of the previous decade.

Here are the most significant highlights of the life of blogging.

1994

It’s generally accepted that the first blog was Links.net, created by Justin Hall, who wrote it while a student at Swarthmore College in 1994. Not that they were called blogs, then, in fact Hall referred to it as his personal homepage.


1997

In 1997 we see the term “weblog” for these first time, a word attributed to Jorn Barger, of the early and influential blog titled Robot Wisdom. It reflects the practice of “logging the web” while browsing.


1998

Appears to be the first generally recognised blog on a traditional news site, with Jonathan Dube blogging Hurricane Bonnie for The Charlotte Observer.

1999

“Weblog” becomes shortened to “blog” by the programmer Peter Merholz.

In those early years, a number of “blogging” platforms started to appear, with LiveJournal

being possibly the most recognised of these early sites.

But it was also in 1999, that a platform later to become Blogger was created at Pyra Labs by Evan Williams and Meg Hourihan. Blogger generally accepted as being responsible establishing blogging in the mainstream.

2000

Merriam-Webster declares the Blog/Blogging their word of the year.

The Growth of Blogs in the early 2000s

This was a growth period for blogs. In 1999, Jesse James Garrett, had recorded that there were as many as 23 blogs on the internet. By the middle of 2006, Technorati‘s State of the Blogosphere reported that there were over 50 million blogs! Some significantly popular Blogs appeared in the early 2000s. These included Boing Boing, Dooce, Gizmodo, Gawker (which was probably the first major gossip blog to appear), Wonkette, and the Huffington Post.

2001,

Some how-to articles and guides started to appear along with “meta blogs” (blogs about blogging) being a significant segment of the most successful blogs being posted. Version 1.0 of Movable Type is released in September of this year.

2002

The first major blog search engine, Technorati is launched. A significant event highlighting the

rising importance of blogs is the dismissal of Dooce employee Heather Armstrong, for comments which she posts about her employer. This sparked a nationwide debate over privacy issues, that went on for over a decade and still reverberates around the sector to this day. It even gave rise to a new word for the English language with. “Dooced” becoming accepted slang term for being dismissed from one’s employment for something written on your blog. It has had references in Urban Dictionary, and on Jeopardy!

2003

Jason Calacanis started Weblogs, Inc. and the sold it to AOL for $25 million. It was this event that signalled the coming of age of the Blog as we know it today, it was firmly here to stay! WordPress starts, along with TypePad, based on Movable Type. The first major podcasting service, Audioblogger, is started. The AdSense advertising platform, the first ad network to match ads to the content on blogs is launched. AdSense also made it possible for new ‘side hustle’ bloggers to make some money, though revenue for lower-traffic blogs were not large.

2004

A year before YouTube appears, the first video blogs are appearing. Political consultants,

candidates, and mainstream news organisations are all increasingly using blogs as a major communications medium. They provide an excellent channel for editorial opinion and connecting modern readers and viewers. The mainstream media sources now are seen to be teaming up with established blogs and bloggers, in many cases in preference to establishing their own. A great example being the purchase of TechCrunch and its stable of blogs by AOL, which, although perhaps not a traditional media source, happens to be one of the oldest internet companies still surviving today.

2005

In January a study is released that reports 32 million Americans are now reading blogs. (More than 10% of the populations), The same year, Garrett M. Graff is the first blogger ever to qualify for White House press credentials. Wealthy Affiliate is founded by Kyle London and Carson Lim.

2007

Tumblr is the first major site to offer a microblogging (also referred as Tumblog) service. They offer a range of services with different post types, differentiating them from the more traditional blogging services, which tend to have a more one-size-fits-all format. Tumblr gives users the freedom to format posts with the inclusion of multimedia objects. It also combines social media type features that allow their users to reblog others’ content and like individual posts.

2010

An estimated 152 million blogs are now active with just about every mainstream news media source Having at least one blog, along with the majority of corporations and individuals. Blogs have well and truly arrived in a myriad of forms and features and have become a fixed part of our communications and information landscape.


But there remains plenty of room for growth, innovation and continuous improvement in the methods of creation, publication and exploitation.

I hope that there was something in there that you learned or found useful, I found it fascinating and the journey continues.

Goodnight from New Zealand Friends and Colleagues

KIA KOA

KIA KAHA

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Recent Comments

33

This is a GREAT one, Goose! Keep being productive while staying safe, my friend!

NICEMAN ✈✈✈✈

You too Skip🧐🇳🇿🐣

I will, Goose!

Hamish what a great in-depth blog on the history of blogs, the fact that it originates from weblog was not too surprising but interesting all the same. Your photo layout was great as well, thanks for teaching an old dog new tricks.

Joe

Happy it was of use to you Joe, stay safe in these interesting times 🧐

Us "old dogs" can certainly use all the new tricks we can get, Joe!

Jeff

.....and you is an old dog Skip 🧐🇦🇺🐣

I am, indeed, Goose! 🐶

NICEMAN ✈✈✈✈

Thanks for the information.
Very interesting.

Glad it was entertaining V, where in the world are you? 🧐

What an awesome ans informative timeline.

Thanks,

Bobby DM

Glad you liked it Bobby it was fun to research and compile, stay safe 🧐

I always enjoy researching origins. Thanks for the enlightening post. Some of these things I knew yet there were many I did not. Just a side note, my brother lives in New Plymouth NZ.
Have a great day.
Bill

Small world William, about a two and a half hour drive from me on the Kapiti Coast, what does he do? 🧐

Retired and a Pastor at a Baptist church, also Director of OneChristian radio on the internet. He is my identical twin brother. My wife and I are planning a trip if possible sometime end of November this year to see him and family. He has lived in NZ since 2003. Busy guy.

Awesome, be great if we could meet up, if you do get here, my family would love to give you a bed and a meal for a night just north of the capital if it was in your achievable time frame? 🧐

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