Chicken or Egg? - Blog or Article

This is for fun! A little information but for fun!

Which Came First the Chicken or the Egg?

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No, this post is not going to be about chickens or eggs.

But it is a lighthearted look at blog post versus an article which came first and what is the difference between the two.

Someone asked the other day if a blog post and an article are the same thing. I responded that we tend to use the term interchangeably (and we do mix the terms) and gave a little background on the term blog. I received several responses from people saying that they had wondered about this before.

SO, I thought I'd take a few minutes and give the history of the blog and the differences between a blog and an article and how the technology available plays a big role in this difference. (See, I bet you didn't think I could tie all this together did you?)

It Began With a Diary - Yes a Diary

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The first keeping of events by date was in a diary "a book in which one keeps a daily record of events and experiences" and is usually handwritten.

The earliest known example of writings that display many of the characteristics of a diary is Meditations written in Greek by the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius in the second half of the 2nd century AD. (Spoiler alert: I looked this up. I didn't known it. But why is a Roman writing in Greek? That's for another post someday.)

Yes, this is Marcus himself or it's supposed to be.

Of course the best known diary is probably The Diary of Ann Frank. (You can look that up yourself if you need to.)

Okay, what does an ancient Roman Emperor have to do with this? Good question. Old Marcus used the technology of his day, the pen or what passed for pen and ink and whatever they used as paper to write on in those ancient days. It was a technology-based record of thoughts and events. I'm sure the pen and paper technology was an improvement over drawing on cave walls.

Journaling was an evolution of a diary to include more personal thoughts, feelings, and reflections.

Still paper and pen based, the journal took the diary one step further with self-reflection. Remember, journaling became popular in the 1960s when psychology was the rage and self-reflection was a tool of psychological development. (I'm riffing a bit here but if you're old like me I think you'll known what I mean.)

I remember when journaling was a big thing in high school (See there's that age thing again). Our English teachers would give us homework to “journal” two or three times a week. (Two or three times a week. That sound familiar to you?)

Who knows what in the world this means. But it was heavy in the 1960s. Okay you got me. I confess. This was really written in 2017 but you get the idea.

Then, along came computers and the journal evolved into something written (typed?) on the computer and called a “weblog”. Moving the journal to the computer made it possible for us to publish our thoughts and feelings on the Internet so others could read and respond to our writings. (Again technology takes center stage.)

In 1999 Peter Merholz coined the term “blog”, when he broke the word weblog into the phrase we blog in the sidebar of his weblog.

The term blog is an abbreviated version of word weblog.