The term "weblog" was coined by Jorn Barger[51] on 17 December 1997. The short form, "blog," was coined by Peter Merholz, who jokingly broke the word weblog into the phrase we
blog in the sidebar of his blog Peterme.com in April or May 1999.[52][53][54] Shortly thereafter, Evan Williams at Pyra Labs used "blog" as both a noun and verb ("to blog," meaning "to edit one's weblog or to post to one's weblog") and devised the term "blogger" in
connection with Pyra Labs' Blogger product, leading to the popularization of the terms.[55]
Origins
Before blogging became popular, digital communities took many forms, including Usenet, commercial online services such as GEnie, BiX and the early CompuServe, e-mail lists[56] and Bulletin Board Systems (BBS). In the 1990s, Internet forum software, such as
WebEx, created running conversations with "threads." Threads are topical connections between messages on a metaphorical "corkboard."
The modern blog evolved from the online diary, where people would keep a running account of their personal lives. Most such writers called themselves diarists, journalists, or journalers. Justin Hall, who began personal blogging in 1994 while a student at Swarthmore College, is generally recognized as one of the earliest bloggers,[57] as is Jerry Pournelle.[citation needed]Dave Winer's Scripting News is also credited with being one of the oldest and longest running weblogs.[58][59] Another
early blog was Wearable Wireless Webcam, an online shared diary of a person's personal life combining text, video, and pictures transmitted live from a wearable computer and EyeTap device to a web site in 1994. This practice of semi-automated blogging with live video together with text was referred to as sousveillance, and such journals were also used as evidence in legal matters.
In 1993, Dr. Glen Barry invented blogging, defined as web based commentary, linking to other articles. The "Forest Protection Blog" (originally entitled "Gaia's Forest Conservation Archives") at http://forests.org/blog/ was also the first political blog, as Dr. Barry campaigned there for forest protection and documented these efforts as his Ph.D.
project[60]. The blog initially used the gopher protocol, and has been on the web continuously since Jan. 1995, making it the web's first and longest continuously running blog. Prior to
this, Dr. Barry provided forest conservation materials via email and bulletin board since 1989. The work has since evolved into the world's largest environmental portals.
Early blogs were simply manually updated components of common Web sites. However, the evolution of tools to facilitate the production and maintenance of Web articles posted in
reverse chronological order made the publishing process feasible to a much larger, less technical, population. Ultimately, this resulted in the distinct class of online publishing that produces blogs we recognize today. For instance, the use of some
sort of browser-based software is now a typical aspect of "blogging". Blogs can be hosted by dedicated blog hosting services,
or they can be run using blog software, or on regular web
hosting services.
Rise in popularity
After a slow start, blogging rapidly gained in popularity. Blog usage spread during 1999 and the years following, being further popularized by the near-simultaneous arrival of the first hosted blog tools:
Open Diary launched in October 1998, soon growing to thousands of online diaries. Open Diary innovated the reader comment, becoming the first blog community where
readers could add comments to other writers' blog entries.
Andrew Smales created Pitas.com in July 1999 as an easier alternative to maintaining a "news page" on a Web site, followed by Diaryland in September 1999, focusing more on a personal diary community.[61]
Since 2002, blogs have gained increasing notice and coverage for their role in breaking, shaping, and spinningnews stories. The Iraq war saw bloggers taking measured and passionate points of view that go beyond the
traditional left-right divide of the political spectrum.
On 6 December 2002, Josh Marshall's talkingpointsmemo.com blog called attention to U.S. Senator Lott's comments regarding Senator Thurmond. Senator Lott was eventually to resign over the matter.
As an example of the rise of importance of blogs, in 2002, many blogs focused on comments by U.S. Senate
Majority LeaderTrent Lott. Senator Lott, at a party honoring U.S. SenatorStrom Thurmond, praised Senator Thurmond by suggesting that the United States would have been better off had Thurmond been elected president. Lott's critics saw these
comments as a tacit approval of racial segregation, a policy advocated by Thurmond's 1948 presidential campaign. This view was reinforced by documents and recorded interviews dug up by bloggers. (See Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo.) Though Lott's comments were made at a public event
attended by the media, no major media organizations reported on his controversial comments until after blogs broke the story. Blogging helped to create a political crisis that forced Lott to step down as majority leader.
Similarly, blogs were among the driving forces behind the "Rathergate" scandal. To wit: (television journalist) Dan Rather presented documents (on the CBS show 60 Minutes) that conflicted with accepted accounts of President
Bush's military service record. Bloggers declared the documents to be forgeries and presented evidence and arguments in support of that view. Consequently, CBS apologized for what it
said were inadequate reporting techniques (see Little Green Footballs). Many bloggers view this scandal as the advent of blogs' acceptance by the mass
media, both as a news source and opinion and as means of applying political pressure.
The impact of these stories gave greater credibility to blogs as a medium of news dissemination. Though often seen as partisan gossips, bloggers sometimes lead the way in bringing key information to public light, with mainstream media having to
follow their lead. More often, however, news blogs tend to react to material already published by the mainstream media. Meanwhile, an increasing number of experts blogged, making blogs a source of in-depth analysis. (See Daniel Drezner, J. Bradford DeLong or Brad Setser.)
By 2004, the role of blogs became increasingly mainstream, as political consultants, news services, and candidates began using them as
tools for outreach and opinion forming. Blogging was established by politicians and political candidates to express opinions on war and other issues and cemented blogs' role as a news source. (See Howard Dean and Wesley Clark.) Even politicians not actively campaigning, such as the UK's Labour Party'sMPTom Watson, began to blog to bond with constituents.
The emergence of blogging has brought a range of legal liabilities and other often unforeseen consequences.
Defamation or Liability
Several cases have been brought before the national courts against bloggers concerning issues of defamation or liability. The courts have
returned with mixed verdicts. Internet Service Providers (ISPs), in general, are immune from liability for information that
originates with third parties (U.S. Communications Decency Act and the EU Directive 2000/31/EC).
In John Doe v. Patrick Cahill, the Delaware Supreme Court held that stringent standards had to be met to unmask anonymous bloggers, and also
took the unusual step of dismissing the libel case itself (as unfounded under American libel law) rather than referring it back to the trial court for reconsideration. In a
bizarre twist, the Cahills were able to obtain the identity of John Doe, who turned out to be the person they suspected: the town's mayor, Councilman Cahill's political rival. The Cahills amended their original complaint, and the mayor settled the
case rather than going to trial.[19]
In January 2007, two prominent Malaysian political bloggers, Jeff Ooi and Ahiruddin Attan were sued by pro-government newspaper, The New Straits Times Press (Malaysia) Berhad, Kalimullah bin Masheerul Hassan, Hishamuddin bin Aun and Brenden John a/l John Pereira over
an alleged defamation. The plaintiff was supported by the Malaysian government.[20] Following the suit, the Malaysian government proposed to "register" all bloggers in Malaysia in order to better control parties against their
interest. [21] This is the first such legal case against bloggers in the country.
In the United Kingdom, a college lecturer contributed to a blog in which she referred to a politician (who had also expressed his views in the same blog) using various uncomplimentary names, including referring to him as a "Nazi". The
politician found out the real name of the lecturer (she wrote under a pseudonym) via the ISP and successfully sued her for £10,000 in damages and £7,200
costs.[22]
In the United States, blogger Aaron Wall was sued by Traffic Power for defamation and publication of
trade secrets in 2005.[23] According to Wired Magazine, Traffic Power had been "banned from Google for allegedly rigging search engine results."[24] Wall and other "white hat" search engine optimization consultants had exposed Traffic Power in what they claim was an effort to protect the public. The case was watched by many bloggers
because it addressed the murky legal question of who's liable for comments posted on blogs.[25] The case was
dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction, and Traffic Power failed to appeal within the allowed time.[26][27][28][29]
Employment
In general, attempts at hiding the blogger's name and/or the place of employment in anonymity have proved ineffective at protecting the blogger.[30] Employees who blog about elements of their place of employment raise the issue of employee branding, since their activities can begin to affect the brand recognition of their employer.
In fall 2004, Ellen Simonetti was fired for what was deemed by her employer, Delta Air
Lines, to be inappropriate material on her blog. She subsequently wrote a book based on her blog.
Delta Air Lines fired flight attendantEllen Simonetti because she posted photographs of herself in uniform on an airplane and because of comments posted on her blog "Queen of Sky: Diary of a Flight Attendant" which the
employer deemed inappropriate.[31][32] This case highlighted the issue of personal blogging and freedom of expression vs. employer rights and responsibilities, and so it received wide media
attention. Simonetti took legal action against the airline for "wrongful termination, defamation of character and lost future wages".[33] The suit was postponed while Delta was in bankruptcy proceedings (court docket).
In the spring of 2006, Erik Ringmar, a tenured senior lecturer at the London School of Economics, was ordered by the convenor of his
department to "take down and destroy" his blog in which he discussed the quality of education at the school.[34]
Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, was fined during the 2006 NBA playoffs for criticizing NBA officials on the court and in his blog.[35]
Mark Jen was terminated in 2005 after 10 days of employment as an Assistant Product Manager at Google for discussing corporate secrets on his personal blog, then called 99zeros and
hosted on the Google-owned Blogger service.[36] He blogged about unreleased products and company finances a week before the company's earnings announcement. He was fired two days after he complied with
his employer's request to remove the sensitive material from his blog. [37]
In India, blogger Gaurav Sabnis resigned from IBM after his posts exposing the false claims of a management school, IIPM, led to management of IIPM threatening to burn their IBM laptops as
a sign of protest against him.[38]
Jessica Cutler, aka "The Washingtonienne", blogged about her sex life while employed as a congressional assistant. After the blog was discovered and she was fired,[39] she wrote a novel based on her experiences and blog: The Washingtonienne: A Novel. Cutler is presently being sued by one of her former
lovers in a case that could establish the extent to which bloggers are obligated to protect the privacy of their real life associates.[40]
Catherine Sanderson, a.k.a. Petite Anglaise, lost her job in Paris at a British accountancy firm because of blogging.[41] Although given in the blog in a fairly anonymous manner, some of the descriptions of the firm and some of its people were less than flattering.
Sanderson later won a compensation claim case against the British firm, however.[42]
On the other hand, Penelope Trunk, writing in the Globe in 2006, was one of the first to point out that a large portion of bloggers are professionals and that a well-written
blog can actually help attract employers.
Political Dangers
Blogging can sometimes have unforeseen consequences in politically sensitive areas. Blogs are much harder to control than broadcast or even print media. As a result, totalitarian and authoritarian regimes often seek to suppress blogs and/or to punish those who maintain
them.
Egyptian blogger Kareem Amer was charged with insulting the Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and an Islamicinstitution
through his online blog. It is the first time in the history of Egypt that a blogger was prosecuted. After a brief trial session that took place in Alexandria, the blogger was
found guilty and sentenced to prison terms of three years for insulting Islam and inciting sedition, and one year for insulting Mubarak.[44]
After expressing opinions in his personal blog about the state of the Sudanese armed forces, Jan Pronk, United Nations Special Representative for the Sudan, was given three days notice to leave Sudan. The Sudanese army had demanded his
deportation.[45][46][47]
Personal Safety
One consequence of blogging is the possibility of attacks or threats against the blogger, sometimes without apparent reason. Kathy Sierra, author of the innocuous blog Creating Passionate Users, was the target of such vicious threats and misogynistic insults that she canceled her keynote speech at a
technology conference in San Diego, fearing for her safety.[48] While a blogger's anonymity is often
tenuous, Internet trolls who would attack a blogger with threats or insults can be emboldened by anonymity. Sierra and supporters initiated
an online discussion aimed at countering abusive online behavior[49] and developed a blogger's code of conduct.
Therapeutic Benefits
Scientists have long known the therapeutic benefits of writing about personal experiences. Blogs provide another convenient avenue for writing about personal experiences. Research shows that it improves memory and sleep, boosts
immune cell activity and reduces viral load in AIDS patients and even speeds healing after surgery.[50][dubious– discuss]
Many bloggers, particularly those engaged in participatory journalism, differentiate themselves from the mainstream media, while others are members of that media working through a different channel. Some institutions see blogging as a means of
"getting around the filter" and pushing messages directly to the public. Some critics worry that bloggers respect neither copyright nor the role of the mass media in presenting society with credible news. Bloggers and other contributors to user-generated content are behind Time
magazine naming their 2006 person of the year as "you".
Many mainstream journalists, meanwhile, write their own blogs — well over 300, according to CyberJournalist.net's J-blog list. The first known use of a blog on a news site was in August 1998, when Jonathan Dube of The Charlotte Observer published one chronicling Hurricane Bonnie.[15]
Some bloggers have moved over to other media. The following bloggers (and others) have appeared on radio and television: Duncan Black (known widely by his pseudonym, Atrios), Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit), Markos Moulitsas Zúniga (Daily Kos), Alex Steffen (Worldchanging) and Ana Marie
Cox (Wonkette). In counterpoint, Hugh Hewitt exemplifies a mass-media personality who has moved in the
other direction, adding to his reach in "old media" by being an influential blogger. Equally many established authors, for example Mitzi Szereto have started
using Blogs to not only update fans on their current works but also to expand into new areas of writing.
Blogs have also had an influence on minority languages, bringing together scattered speakers and learners; this is particularly so with blogs in Gaelic languages. Minority language publishing (which may lack economic feasibility) can find its audience through inexpensive blogging.
Researchers have analyzed the dynamics of how blogs become popular. There are essentially two measures of this: popularity through citations, as well as popularity through affiliation (i.e. blogroll). The basic conclusion from studies of the structure of blogs is that while it takes time for a blog to become popular through blogrolls, permalinks can boost popularity more quickly, and are perhaps more indicative of popularity and authority than blogrolls, since they denote that people are actually reading the blog's content and
deem it valuable or noteworthy in specific cases.[12]
The blogdex project was launched by researchers in the MIT Media Lab to crawl the Web and gather data
from thousands of blogs in order to investigate their social properties. It gathered this information for over 4 years, and autonomously tracked the most contagious information spreading in the blog community, ranking it by recency and popularity. It
can therefore be considered the first instantiation of a memetracker. The project is no longer active, but a similar function is now served by tailrank.com.
Blogs are given rankings by Technorati based on the number of incoming links and Alexa
Internet based on the Web hits of Alexa Toolbar users. In August 2006, Technorati found that the most linked-to blog on the internet was that of Chinese actress Xu
Jinglei.[13] Chinese media Xinhua reported that this blog received more than 50 million page views, claiming it to be the most popular blog in the world.[14] Technorati rated Boing Boing to be the most-read group-written blog.[13]
Gartner forecasts that blogging will peak in 2007, leveling off when the number of writers who maintain a personal Web site reaches 100 million. Gartner analysts
expect that the novelty value of the medium will wear off as most people who are interested in the phenomenon have checked it out, and new bloggers will offset the number of writers who abandon their creation out of boredom. The firm estimates that
there are more than 200 million former bloggers who have ceased posting to their online diaries, creating an exponential rise in the amount of "dotsam" and "netsam" — that is to say, unwanted objects on the Web (analogous to
flotsam and jetsam).
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