History
Main articles: History of blogging and online diary
An early example of a "diary" style blog
consisting of text and images transmitted wirelessly in real-
time from a wearable computer with head-up display, February 22,
1995
The term "weblog" was coined by Jorn Barger[5] on December 17,
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 May 1999.[6][7][8] 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.[9]
Origins
Before blogging became popular, digital communities took many
forms, including Usenet, commercial online services such
as GEnie, Byte Information Exchange (BIX) and the
early CompuServe, e-mail lists,[10] and bulletin board
systems (BBS). In the 1990s, Internet forum software created
running conversations with "threads". Threads are topical
connections between messages on a virtual "corkboard".[further explanation
needed]
Berners-Lee also created what is considered by Encyclopedia
Britannica to be "the first 'blog'" in 1992 to discuss the progress
made on creating the World Wide Web and software used for it.[11]
From June 14, 1993, Mosaic Communications Corporation
maintained their "What's New"[12] list of new websites, updated
daily and archived monthly. The page was accessible by a special
"What's New" button in the Mosaic web browser.
In November 1993 Ranjit Bhatnagar started writing about
interesting sites, pages and discussion groups he found on the
internet, as well as some personal information, on his website
Moonmilk, arranging them chronologically in a special section called
Ranjit's HTTP Playground.[13] Other early pioneers of blogging, such
as Justin Hall, credit him with being an inspiration.[14]
The earliest instance of a commercial blog was on the first business
to consumer Web site created in 1995 by Ty, Inc., which featured a
blog in a section called "Online Diary". The entries were maintained
by featured Beanie Babies that were voted for monthly by Web site
visitors.[15]
The modern blog evolved from the online diary where people would
keep a running account of the events in 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 earlier bloggers,[16] as is Jerry Pournelle.[17] Dave Winer's
Scripting News is also credited with being one of the older and
longer running weblogs.[18][19] The Australian Netguide magazine
maintained the Daily Net News[20] on their web site from 1996. Daily
Net News ran links and daily reviews of new websites, mostly in
Australia.
