What Is A Blog?

Seems like a silly question doesn’t it? Yet yesterday, I discovered two of my adult and computer compatible kids plus a whole bunch of other people had no idea what I was talking about when I referred to blogs and blogging.

So, of course, I googled, What is a blog, and got a whole page of definitions, most of which say, one way or another, that a blog is a journal or diary. But that’s the old definition.

Although personal journals still make up the bulk of blogs, today blogs are showing up as marketing tools for businesses. They form ways for customers to communicate with a corporation and, at least in theory, increase customer loyalty. They also are pure marketing tools with snippets of information posted regularly in order to promote and product or service. I don’t know what to call that… business blogs or marketing blogs. Maybe they don’t need a definition. But writers need to be aware of this aspect of blogging because bloggers are getting hired to do this type of blogging.

This reminds me of the early days of the web. Those of us who got in early on saw that web pages were important; writers recognized the web as another publishing medium, while family members and business people asked, what’s a web page?

Commercialization is coming to blogging, just as it did to the web. As with most things, it’s a mixed blessing. But commercial blogging is another opportunity for writers.

Write (and blog) well, and often,