A glimpse of the past 1 OF 2

A blog, a shortened term for weblog, initially serves as a way for digital communities to share news and commentaries with easy-to-use formats. It has been an important component of the Internet as of its earliest days until it advanced into newsgroups and personal diaries. Before HTTP was introduced, blogs are somewhat similar to a Usenet or BBS (Bulletin Board System).

During 1983-1984 Brian E. Redman created a newsgroup named mod.ber. It serves as a discussion forum for Redman and some associates. They placed several excerpts of interesting postings that are taking place over the net. This somehow has a similarity to the common blogs nowadays. Unfortunately, it only lasted for 8 months. rec.humor.funny is considered as the oldest and still existing blog in the world. It was founded by Brad Templeton.

One of the earliest bloggers is Justin Hall who started in 1994. He was still a student at Swarthmore College when he launched Justin’s Home Page. It includes links to and personal reviews of other sites. In 1996, Hall starts an online diary with dated every day entries. Another earlier blog is Wearable Wireless Webcam formed in 1994. It was an online shared personal diary with text, images, and videos on it. It was then transmitted from a wearable computer to a website.

The word “blog” was introduced by Peter Merholz on April or May 1999. In his blog Peterme.com, he teasingly broke the phrase “weblog” into “we blog”. Eatonweb, the first portal to list all blogs, was initiated in 1999 as blogging began its growth. It was set up by Brigitte Eaton who assessed all submissions ensuring that each site consists of dated entries. Pyra Labs, currently owned by Google, started the Blogger -a free blogging service. It offers simple and easy to use tools for anyone who wants to start his own blog. Similar services emerged like Groksoup and Pitas.