Since this is a blog about blogging it makes sense to start by talking about what we mean by the word “blog”. We all know a blog when we see one, but trying to define the concept proves tricky.

What does “blog” stand for and where did the word come from? Well, it’s not an acronym, rather it’s an abbreviation of the term “web log” – an online journal. That’s still what many people think of as a traditional blog, an online account of life usually written via a blogging service such as Blogger or Livejournal. Early blogs tended to be personal and were often of interest only to one’s friends.

Things have moved on a lot since then. Today we have corporate blogs, subject based blogs such as this one, news blogs, celebrity blogs, blogs that are presented like magazines, social networks, micro-blogging – any number of variations.

How do we decide what is and what isn’t a blog? There’s no simple way, however I suggest that blogs tend to have at least some of the following features:

• Platform
  Most blogs use a dedicated publishing platform such as WordPress or Blogger.

• Timeline
  Most blogs follow a timeline, either internal or external

• Interactive
  Comments and reader interaction are the lifeblood of blogs

• Voice
  Writing style in blogs tends to be informal and personal

Those headings cover a lot of ground and I’ll be discussing each of them in more depth over the following few days. They aren’t unique to blogs of course, however I reckon that the more of those points a site can tick the more likely it is to be labelled as a blog.

Next: Blogging Platforms