A brief history of blogging:

We read blogs associated with different subjects. Since last decade blogs have become the important part of online landscape.

The first blog was recognized as Links.net, was referred as a personal homepage, created by Justin Hall. The term weblog was coined in 1997. The term was created to reflect the process of logging the web. Peter Merholz in 1999 , shortened the term weblog to blog.  Blogger was started in 1999 by Evan Williams and Meg Hourihan.

In 1999,  there were only 23 blogs on the internet, but by the middle of 2006, there were 50 million blogs that were activated on the internet. The political blogs were most popular blogs specially political issues related to US were the major subjects of the blog. A number of popular blogs such as Boing Boing, Dooce, Gizmodo Gawker, Wonkette and the Huffington Post got their start in 2000s.  Version 1.0 of Movable Type was released in September of 2001. WordPress was started in 2003. Type Pad was also released in 2003.  Technorati, the first major blog search engine was launched in 2002. Audioblogger, the first major podcasting service, was founded in 2003. The first video blog started in 2004.

By the mid of 2000s , blogs were reaching the mainstream. According to the study in January 2005, 32 million American read blogs. A number of mainstream media sites started their own blogs during the mid to late 2000s. By 2004, political consultants, candidates and mainstream news organizations all began using blogs more prominently which helped them in reaching out to readers and viewers.

Later on the concept of microblogging came into existence.  A lot of people only think of twitter when they think of microblogging, but there are other microblog platforms that allow for a more traditional type of blogging experience, such as Tumblr and Posterous.

Blog

A blog is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, description of events, or other materials such as graphics or videos.

Composing a post

To invite the readers and to grab their attention the post should be interesting, appropriate and error free. Following steps should be followed to compose a good post.

1.       Make a point

2.       Be concise

3.       Post often

4.       Consider inviting guest bloggers

5.       Proofread

6.       Create visual interest

Using multimedia is a good way to make your blog attractive and attentive. The use of videos, graphics and other multimedia elements invites more readers. While using multimedia elements some matters should be kept in mind such as the appropriateness of content, size and quality of multimedia.  The visual preview of the video in form of a screen shot should be added. The sources that are used should be acknowledged. The hyperlink is an important part of blogging and it increases the credibility of the author.

Tips to maintain a successful blog.

·         Use the appropriate tag function which may not lead to ambiguity

·         Link to similar blogs in order

·         While dealing with the public blog, be aware about the cultural and knowledge difference

·         Handle the comments with care and courtesy