What does blog stand for?

Extracted and lightly edited from a book “The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging”

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A blog at its most fundamental level is a “web log”. That is a regularly updated account of events or idea posted on the web.

Blog is another form of human communication which is more interactive, more democratic, and just more fun than what has come before.

Blogs can bring down a Senate majority leader. They can show what a presidential candidate talks about in unguarded moments. They can provide stay-at-home parents with a little ranting space to share about any issue including colic. They cut out the gatekeeper of information and shorten the news cycle.

Blogging gives you a fee ling of satisfaction than writing a letter to editor, or a letter to “customer care” department if a corporation. The public nature of blogs mean we can read whatever other bloggers write about. Blog audience is very huge and we may have many topics to choose and write about.

The term “weblog” coined in 1997 by John Barger, the editor of Robot Wisdom. The term “blog” coined by Peter Melholz in 1999, the Adaptive Path founder and former Epinions.com creative director on his website peterme.com.

This is the edited interview between Huffington Post and Peter Melholz (also included in the book).

HUFFPOST : Why did you start blogging? (before it was called that)

MELHOLZ : I wanted to make name for myself. In 1998, I was a neophyte interaction designer with a lot of ideas. I wanted to get known for my ideas.

HUFFPOST : How did you think up the word “blog”?

MELHOLZ : There was a word “weblog” used to describe the kind of site I was maintaining, with lsats of links and annotation of the web. I changed the syllable from web-log to we-blog, and that become “blog”.

Now the word become so popular that everyone might heard about blog. At least most of my friends write their own blogs 😀

Why blog?

“To avoid the looney bin” said Bob Cesca, author of One Nation Under Fear.

“To fight injustice” said Leslie Goldman, author of Locker Room Diaries.

“As a substitute for therapy” said Bree Barton, dante, degreed blog and blogger for Cape Cod Today.

(Taken from The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging)

So now you know what blog is, are you ready to blog? It’s fun to have one and get more serious about it 🙂