What is a "blog"?
The full name of blog should be Web log, which means "web log" in Chinese. It was later abbreviated to Blog, and a blogger is the person who writes a blog. From an understanding point of view, a blog is "a publishing method that expresses personal thoughts, network links, and content, arranged in chronological order, and constantly updated." Simply put, bloggers are a type of people who are used to writing diaries online.
Blog is the fourth online communication method after Email, BBS, and ICQ. It is a personal "reader's digest" in the Internet age, an online diary with hyperlinks as a weapon, and represents a new Lifestyle and new ways of working also represent new ways of learning. Specifically, the concept of blogger is explained as a person who uses specific software to publish, publish and post personal articles on the Internet.
A Blog is actually a web page, which is usually composed of short and frequently updated posts. These posted articles are arranged in reverse order by year and date. The content and purpose of blogs vary greatly, ranging from hyperlinks and comments to other websites, about companies and personal ideas to the publication or posting of diaries, photos, poems, essays, and even science fiction novels. Many blogs are the expression of personal thoughts, while other blogs are the collective creation of a group of people based on a specific topic or a common area of ??interest.
With the rapid expansion of Blogging, its purpose is far from the original experience of browsing the web. There are currently thousands of Bloggers on the Internet with widely varying purposes for publishing and posting blogs. However, because communication methods are simpler and easier than emails and discussion groups, Blog has become an increasingly popular communication tool among families, companies, departments and teams, as it is also gradually used in corporate intranets (Intranets). middle.
The history of blogs
The name blog was first proposed by Jorn Barger in December 1997. But in 1998, there were only a handful of blogging sites on the Internet. At that time, Jesse J. Garrett, editor of Infosift, wanted to make a list of sites similar to blogs, so he started a difficult search on the Internet.
Finally in December 1998, he collected a list of some websites. He sent the list to Cameron Barrett, who found the list very useful and published it on the Camworld website. After other blog site maintainers discovered this, they also sent their own URLs, website names, and main features, and the list became increasingly rich. By early 1999, Jesse's "Complete Blog Sites" list had 23 sites.
Because the list of blog sites maintained by Cameron and Jesse*** is interesting and easy to read, it has attracted the attention of many people. In this case, Peter Merholz declared: "This new thing will definitely attract the attention of most people. As a common word in the future, web-blog will inevitably be referred to as blog, and those who write web logs, It is logical to become a blogger—a blog." This means the blog is officially named.
As the number of blogs increases, the content of the web logs written on each blog site is also mixed, making it impossible to understand the main content and features of each new site. Cameron later only posted familiar blog sites on the website. Not long after, Brigitte Eaton also collected a list of blog sites called "Eaton Network Portal" and proposed that content should be organized based on date. This also establishes a major standard for blog classification and arrangement.
In July 1999, "Pitas", a free tool software specially designed to create blog sites, was released, which played a key role in the rapid construction of blog sites. Subsequently, hundreds of similar tools sprung up. This tool is of great significance for accelerating the establishment of blog sites. In August of the same year, Pyra released the Blogger website, and Groksoup was also put into operation. Using the simple Internet-based tools provided by these companies, the number of blog sites finally experienced an explosive growth. At the end of 1999, software developer Dave Winer recommended the Edit This Page website to everyone, and Jeff A. Campbell launched the Velocinews website. All these services are free, and their purpose is clear: to allow more people to become bloggers and express their opinions and insights online.
What does blogging bring?
Now, half of the media content spread around the world every day is controlled by six major media giants. Its profit drive, ideology and traditional censorship system have made these heavily processed contents increasingly unsuitable for people's needs. The industrialization of media and the factoryization of content export are seriously affecting its development.
For example, taking the Associated Press as an example, there are nearly 4,000 professional journalists who "produce and ship" 20 million words of content every day, which are published in more than 8,500 newspapers, magazines and radios every day, treating readers as As an "information animal". This cathedral-like model dominates the entire media world. At this time, the trend of personal-centered blogs began to have a strong impact on traditional media, especially on the traditional concepts and ethics that had been formed over the years in the press.
Blogging is an online personal publishing method that meets the "five zero" conditions (zero editing, zero technology, zero system, zero cost, zero form) and achieves "zero entry barriers". From the perspective of media value The three most important links in the chain: author, content and readers realize "open source code". At the same time, we will gradually complete the true opening of the system at the level of ethics, operating mechanisms, and economic laws, so that the future media world will complete a fundamental transformation from a cathedral model to a bazaar model.
The emergence of blogs embodies the commercial monopoly and non-commercial freedom embodied in the media world in the Internet era, mass communication and personalized (focused, niche) expression, one-way communication and two-way communication. 3 basic contradictions, directions and interactions. These contradictions have been fundamentally resolved, at least on a technical level, by the open source movement triggered by blogging.
The rise of blogs
In recent years, all news media have experienced technological changes. Today, no one will deny the revolution that the Internet has brought to the media. However, not many people seem to realize the magic of the Internet: the subversive power does not seem to have come to the world.
The key to everything is time. For impatient people, time is like a slow river, and for calm people, time is like a rapid stream. The power of the Internet has indeed not been fully exerted, because it is only 10 years since the commercialization of the Internet began; as a new media method, it has just passed 10 years since the Internet was first tried.
For a new media form, 10 years is too short. However, 10 years is enough for people to feel the overwhelming power and the impact that is still quietly lurking. Now, with the emergence of blogs, the extraordinary power of online media has begun to show, and the momentum is gradually growing. Although blogs are still out of sight of most people, their journey to change history has begun.
In 1998, the personal blog website "Drudge Report" took the lead in exposing the Clinton Lewinsky scandal;
In 2001, the 911 incident made blogs an important source of news , and entered the mainstream;
In December 2002, Majority Leader Lott’s careless remarks were noticed by blog sites, and he lost his hat;
In 2003, surrounding news The Iraq war reported by traditional media and the Internet also started at the same time. The credibility of the traditional media in the United States encountered unprecedented doubts, and blogs won a great victory;
In June 2003, the executive editor and editor-in-chief of the New York Times also He was forced to step down after the truth revealed by "bloggers" triggered one of the biggest scandals in the history of news media;
In April 2004, most of the Gmail testers who made a splash came from bloggers;
...
This series of subversive forces originating from the blog world is not only shaping a new image of the blog itself, but is also profoundly changing the tradition and future direction of the media.
Forecast for the future development of blogs
Blogs inherit the free spirit of personal websites, but incorporate new models that stimulate creativity, making them more open and constructive. It is necessary to reflect one's existence in the online world, promote one's social value, expand one's knowledge horizons, and establish one's own communication group. In this sense, blogging will become more and more popular and accepted by more people. The launch of the "Blog China" website in August 2002 marked the emergence of the "Blog" phenomenon in China's Internet industry; on November 18, the news and communication academic website "Zijin.com" launched the "Blog Arena" on the occasion of its revision "New column. From the perspective of information dissemination, the emergence of blog websites and channels means that for individual bloggers, the channels for information collection and release are simplified and expedited to the greatest extent. Maybe you don’t believe it now, but think about it, why was it that during the lowest ebb of the Internet, during the Great Depression of personal websites, and at the most miserable time of commercial websites, blogs started to flourish without a single investment or hype from big companies? "Of course, everything still takes time. Blogs have just begun to develop, especially in China. At present, the concept of blogs is only popularized and in its infancy. The future cannot be judged entirely based on the current situation, but in 1 to 2 years, 3 to 5 years Of course, the first step is to practice it yourself. ”
As a new way of expression, blogs spread not only emotions, but also a lot of wisdom, opinions and thoughts. . In a sense, it is also a new cultural phenomenon. The emergence and prosperity of blogs truly highlight the intellectual value of the Internet and mark the beginning of the development of the Internet to a higher stage