History

Blogs (derived from “weblog”) first developed as “online diaries” where people could update others on their personal lives. The growing popularity of these journals made it feasible for people to develop specialized software, known as content management system (CMS), which has made the processing and publishing of information easier and more user-friendly, making it more accessible to less tech-savvy people out there.

Blogs and blog hosting software have become more and more sophisticated, integrating non-textual forms of communication such as photos and video, thus giving rise to photoblogs (or “phlogs”) and videoblogs (sometimes called “vlogs”). The ease with which content could be produced and uploaded online was further improved by the development of cell phones that combine Internet access with a camera. This way, people can just take a picture with their phone and upload it instantly onto their photoblog.

Blogs in general, and photoblogs as well, have entered into the mainstream, with millions of private individuals having personal blogs of their own, not to mention business blogs, and blogs of organizations and even mainstream media outlets that have taken their information sharing to a new level. Bloggers have had an influence on news reporting in general, the best example probably being the so-called “Rathergate” scandal where bloggers exposed the fake documents that Dan Rather used in his report about George W. Bush’s military service record.