Enter The Blogger

The rise of the blogger came in a roundabout way, stemming from the communities that began to arise in the early days of the internet. Centering on particular interests, these groups used such things as electronic bulletin boards and email lists to communicate, but the mechanics of contact were awkward. As some mused on how to make the interactions more natural, the idea of a daily diary with back-and-forth communication began to take hold.

Software was eventually developed to meet the blogging need. It too started slowly, often doing little more than allowing daily posts that people could read but not offer a response. A further step was taken when software allowed the creation of forums where a "thread" of sequential posts could be made on a specific topic. But the blogger really took a step forward when programs allowed daily posts with comments in response. This was the beginning of real blogging.

While 1998 was the year the world first saw a blogging site as it's known today (Open Diary, established in October), the big year for blogging seems to have been 1999, since it witnessed the debut of sites like LiveJournal, Pitas.com, Diaryland, and the well-known www.blogger.com site. Even the word "blog" was coined in this year. It was a shortened form of "weblog," first used in 1997 by Jorn Barger on his "Robot Wisdom Weblog." In 1999, Peter Merholz broke the word down to the phrase "we blog," and finally Evan Williams at Pyra Labs popularized the use of " a blog" as a noun, and "to blog" as a verb.

Once multi-member blogging sites were established, the phenomenon took off in a big way. In 2003, WordPress, another major site, was introduced, based on open source blogging software. As blogging grew in popularity, the use and value of blogs became more and more apparent, and in more realms than anyone had dreamt of being possible.

In the short time since blogs were introduced, they have risen to prominence as entertainment gossip sites, pages where businesses connect with customers, sites for following people's favorite teams or athletes, and even sites for keeping an eye on politicians or where politicians can get their own messages out. The blogger appears to be the great communicator of the day. Whatever need anyone perceives, there will be someone on a blog to post an answer. And all the while, these blogs retain their original purpose for the majority of people by simply providing a diary site where they can post their thoughts, and where people can respond to them.