Purposes of Blogs

Now that you know how to use a blog, and where they come from, maybe you are wondering about what purpose blogs tend to serve.
Firstly, most blogs are personal. They can be used for people as online journals to post their experiences online. Many people share their lives with the online community for the sake of sharing ideas, hobbies, links, or videos. They can be political, humorous, about art, or any random subject, really.
http://www.lifeinhighfidelity.blogspot.com/ The blog I write is a mix of music, film, and random topics, if you are looking for an example.
Educational: Many people keep blogs in order to educate people on specific subjects, it could be an environmental blog, a blog about current science, or even a blog about math. As boring as that sounds.
Entertainment: Used by both individuals and companies, or organizations like bands or festivals. Videos, music, and text are often used in these, and they can feature things like downloads or polls. An example would be a band keeping their own blogs to keep their fans informed.
Business: Allows for companies to communicate with their client and customer base. They can serve as both public relations tools and advertising.

But aside from the types of blogs, what was the initial purpose and reason behind the creation of blogs?
The most basic idea behind blogging is the sharing of ideas. With blogs, anyone can set up an online account, and begin publishing their own ideas online. Everyone likes to feel like their opinion is valid, or at least likes to be heard. With blogs you can both publish your ideas online, and get a response from just about anyone who comes across it. You can use them to share ideas with your friends and family, or just to get your ideas out there. While blogs began as online journals, and were a way for people to share their lives, they have evolved into much more than that. With so many different kinds of blogs, we can see how they are for sharing many different kinds of ideas, and even just for entertainment. Their novelty originally was that every day people could feel like their lives were important enough to be shown online. But they are now more of a think tank, really.

Navigating a blog

So at this point you will be asking how to use one of these things.
Reading a blog:
Blog entires will show on the main page of the blog. You can scroll through and see which entry you want to read, and then either read it on the main page, or click on the title to read the whole entry. This is because home pages of blogs will show only a limited amount of the blog, so click on the title to be re directed to the full entry.
Looking for a specific post? On the right hand side of blog sites you can see the blogs archives posted in reverse chronological order. Meaning the most recent entry will be listed at the top. Many bloggers will include things beyond just the text, video or photo's they usually post on the blog. Most blogs list their own favorite blogs or websites to visit, as well as polls or quotes and links off to the side. Just to give their blog a little more personality.

Writing A Blog:
This is pretty straight forward. The dashboard link at the top of the screen will direct you to your blog running options, just click on the giant POSTING or NEW POSTING button, and you will be given a big page to type on. Then you just save what you did (even this is usually not needed, as most blogs auto save every minute or so)
and click on publish post.
This will be different if you want to post a video entry or photo, then you just click on the photo or video options above the type pad and upload it from your hard drive.
Simple stuff, which is why there are so many gung ho bloggers all over the internet.

A Short History of Blogs

The origin of blogs can be traced back to early internet conventions like chat rooms and conversation threads, as well as online conversation forums.From that people began using the internet to keep online journals and share ideas. It is still unclear who began the first blog as we know them today, but it is widely thought to be Justin Hall, who began an official online journal while in College. In 1999 the number of blogs were estimated at around 50, and only 5 years later at 4.1 million. Before blogs were made so popular there was sites like Openjournal (1998) and Livejournal(1999) which made online journal entries easy to do. Original blog software was mostly usable only by people with an understanding of computer code, but with the explosion of online blog hosting sites, they are more accessible to a wider audience, because of how easy it is to run one now.
This site, blogger, was launched in 1999 and can be seen as one of the first official blog sites (as we know them now) to be online.

What is a blog?

Well thats a good question, dear reader. Mainly because this whole blog is for just that. Arent I subtle with my into?
The word blog itself comes from "web log", mashed into web speak, blog.
Simply put, a blog is an online journal of sorts. Its a webpage that allows its operator to post entries on anything they want.
For example: are you an alien? Maybe you are, because for some reason my english teacher really enjoys using you and your alien kind in metaphors. Dont feel special, he uses metaphors a lot. Maybe you are an alien, and you want to write a blog about your space expliots. You could follow the following steps to making your own intergalactic inspired blog:
1- Search for a blog hosting website, using Google or blog directory sites.
2- Click on the register option on its home page with your green alien appendages. Tentacles, in some cases.
3- Enter your email and create a password.
4- You then need to create a name for your blog, and a URL address for it.
Examples: (name) Blogicity (URL) www.blogicity.blogspot.com
5- Customize, choose a layout and a background image or color. These options will pop up as soon as you register.
6- Start blogging, fellow blogger.