Everybody and their blog

Do you know what a blog is? Well of course you do...but do you know what it means, blog?

I had to check because I knew at one point, but forgot. About half the people I asked, mostly teachers or family, didn’t know either.

WEB LOG….WE BLOG….BLOG

A blog is an Internet hosted commentary that typically invites its readers to interact by commenting, sharing, tagging, pinning, liking, tweeting, sharing, etc. A blogger is someone who blogs, a term used for writing a blog. I am now a blogger blogging on my blog!

Before I was a blogger (yesterday), I decided to find out a bit more about blogging. I read blogs all the time, and so do you because everybody writes a blog and obviously more people actively read blogs! Think Huffington Post.

According to Wordpress, one of the world’s leading web platforms for blogs, in 2014 it had 409 million Americans view 19.7 billion pages. That's just one provider! Do keep in mind that millions of blogs are abandoned. Poor blogs! I actually think we have an abandoned blog my husband started when we moved to Vietnam five yers ago. I'll check on that.

Here’s a quick history if you’re interested. Justin Hall is noted as one of the first to blog about the comings and goings of his college life in 1994. He still blogs today, 21 years later. Seems like an interesting guy. He, along with other individual pioneer bloggers, mostly blogged about personal interests, hobbies, thoughts, and ideas. Basically public journaling of their daily lives.

Eventually, all sorts of people began blogging...about whatever they wanted. Politics, religion, technology,

cooking ...anything! There were/are artblogs, photoblogs, videoblogs, mP3blogs, podcast blogs, instructional blogs called edublogs. There are even awards for blogs...BOBs and Bloggies are two big ones. But watch out for FLOGS because those are fake blogs usually created by large, corporations for marketing purposes...think Wal-Mart.

Then came microblogging...think Twitter and Facebook. Yes, even you have probably microblogged many times documenting your life or giving personal insight, sharing an article or a video you found interesting, insulting, hilarious, so on. Did you know you were blogging, well microblogging?

Over the past 20 years, blogging has also evolved to become an important part of online presence for companies, big and small. Some people earn money for blogging. And, no doubt companies have to pay attention to the product review blogs. More than 80% of Americans purchase a product based on a trusted blog review, especially when dealing with technology. Anybody who is somebody has a blog! Think NFL, Whole Foods, Red Cross, BMW, Jay-Z. Blogging is a powerful publishing business.

Web 2.0, the participatory web, has transformed how we produce, consume, and engage with information and knowledge. And that basically changes everything. This interests me as an educator, but it should interest everyone as a learner. There has been an important shift here from accessibility to information... to accessibility to other people, providing an innovative opportunity for people to share ideas, knowledge, and perspectives... to connect!

Hopefully this blog will be an opportunity for me to tap into some of that by actively participating myself.

What about you? Do you blog? personally or professional, or both? Have you abandoned a blog?

Share your blogging experience!

Happy blogging!

#bloggingtechnologyeducation #webloginforgraph