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Blog
Blog - Blog is short for "Web Log" - and originated as a form of online diary or journal kept by individuals and published online for public consumption. Blog authors are referred to as "Bloggers", and the universe of published blogs as "the Blogosphere". There are a range of Blog publishing platforms - either standalone packages that bloggers can install (such as Movable Type, or Wordpress), or Web-based services such as Blogger.com.
Blogs have certain conventions including:
- Information is published in "posts", which are generally (but not always) reasonably short blocks of information on a particular topic or topics of interest to the blogger.
- Posts are ordered in chronological order on the blog, with the most recent post at the top and sorted in descending date order
- Bloggers often maintain a list - called a "blogroll" - of other blogs that they read
- Blogs often "syndicate" content as a series of headlines and links known as a "newsfeed". Newsfeeds are commonly published in a range of standard formats (such as "RSS" or "Atom") that can be aggregated using tools known as "feedreaders" to provide a list of headlines from a number of sites in one place. Feedreaders are usually either standalone software packages installed on a machine, or web-based services that allow users to "subscribe" to a range of feeds. Examples of some common web-based feedreaders are Google Reader, Pageflakes, and Netvibes.
- Blog postings often provide the ability for readers to post comments or feedback on the post. Often commenters will post a comment on their own blog with a link back to the original blog entry they are commenting on so that readers can follow the conversation from one blog to the next.
- Linkbacks provide a way for the original author to record who is commenting on and linking to their blog post.
- Blog postings are often "categorised" into topic categories determined by the author. This allows readers to view all posts belonging to a specific category.
