Classification: Computer/Network

Analysis:

What is a blog? It became one of the hottest search keywords in major search engines in 24. The related search keywords in Baidu search engine include "What is a blog", "What is the meaning of a blog" and "Blog China", and so on. At the same time, blog was also rated as the hottest Internet phenomenon in 24 by many institutions and media. BLOG, the abbreviation of WEB LOG, is simply a web diary. Many media and websites at home and abroad regard BLOG as the hottest vocabulary in 24. There are many articles about BLOG on the Internet. Here is a brief excerpt of some introductions.

The following is an excerpt from Dr. Fang Xingdong, the founder of blog in China and the founder of Chinese translation of "blog", about the brief history and basic historical facts of blog development. If you are interested in further understanding, you can refer to it. The publication date of the original text is about August 22, just after it was published on the blog China website.

brief history and basic historical facts of blog development (Fang Xingdong)

who is the father of blog?

Blogs have only appeared in recent years, but it is not an easy task to write the history of blogs. Many historical materials must be verified as "antiques", and there are many differences and controversies. For example, who is the "father of blogs"? It is impossible to have a definite answer to this question because many famous people are involved.

The earliest blog prototype

First of all, which was the earliest blog site? Obviously, the earliest blog appeared as a network "filter", that is, to select some special websites and make a simple introduction. Therefore, some people think that What's New page of Mosaic developed by browser inventor Marc Andreesen is the earliest blog page. Justin Hall's underworld link page (links/vita/web/story) is also one of the earliest blog site prototypes.

the earliest blogger

Secondly, who was the earliest blogger? William Gibson, a famous science fiction writer, predicted professional blog (Salon Magazine/Weekly/Gibson 296114) in 1996: "It won't be long before someone will browse the Internet for you, select content and make a living from it. There is indeed such a demand."

The earliest blog

Dave Winer, CEO of Userland Company, started to operate in 1997, and Scripting News(scripting) really began to have the basic and important features of blogging. And he integrated these functions into the free software "Frontier Scripting Environment". However, whether this is really the earliest blog is controversial. Some people think that formally speaking, it was Jorn Barger who established the basic appearance of today's blog site at the end of 1997 (the original appearance at that time can be seen online: roboisdom/).

network administrators use log(log files) to refer to "system log files". Therefore, a few years ago, if you used google to search for weblogs, most of them were website traffic analysis software such as Seacloak, unlike the real weblogs today.

the earliest use of the word "weblog"

in December 1997, the official name of weblog was first used by "robot wisdom weblog" (roboisdom/lit/index) run by Jorn Barger. Up to now, he is still a very influential figure in the field of blog. Jorn Barger's contribution is mainly reflected in the form. He changed the meaning of log from an impersonal, quasi-objective and mechanical writing close to the log book to a free writing close to the travel log. Metafilter, a community blog site initiated by Matt Haughey, has been widely criticized, but it is indeed more interesting than other blog sites for a long time.

The word "blog" was first used.

At present, the most popular word "blog" is generally recognized as being named by Peter Merholtz (Peter Me/Archives/* * * * * * * *) only in 1999. On May 17th, 22, Peter Merholz recalled in a post entitled "Vocabulary Games":

I always like vocabulary, and I like to get into the dictionary whenever I meet new words. I like vocabulary games, and etymology is even more interesting. I didn't expect this hobby to have an impact. In April or May of 1999 (the exact time is not clear), I posted a post on my home page: "I decided to pronounce weblog wee'- blog, or abbreviated as' blog'". I didn't think much about it, so I used this word in my post, and later everyone started to use it by email. Keith Dawson put the blog into the "jargon query". However, if Pyra hadn't released Blogger in August 1999, the term might have ended in vain.

Peter Merholtz turned blog into a verb, and later, he derived some sayings such as blogging, Blogsphere, ibolog, blogging world, etc.

Blog software tools

1999 was also the year when blogs started to grow at a high speed, mainly due to the appearance of many free softwares published automatically on the Internet, such as Blogger, Pita, Greymatter, Manila, Diaryland and Big Blog Tool, and they often provided free server space. With these, a blog can publish, update and maintain its own website at zero cost. Among them, Blogger produced by Pyra Company in August 1999 is the most popular and influential tool.

A blogger wrote, "I was shocked when I first used blogger's service. The whole interface can be so easy to use, and the published results are equally touching. If you start using Radio Userland with some experience, tears will simply drop on the keyboard. It's a bit like the feeling that emacs gave me in the past: omnipotent and easy to get started. Will I mainly attribute (or encourage) these software and services? ) the development of CSS and CMS. The former provides a separate basis for content and layout, while the latter urges programmers to start thinking and provide an interface that makes updating web pages easier. "

At that time, Pyra Company had a "dream team" of online publishing software. However, this success did not bring profits to the company. Even due to financial pressure, the company laid off employees in January 21, and cut to the limit in one breath: only one full-time employee, Evan Williams, was one of the founders. The dream team also fell apart, and another founder was Meg Hourihan, a New Englander. However, in 23, Blogger was acquired by Google, and it was finally a bitter experience.

what exactly is a blog?

finally, the most important question is, what is a blog? What is the difference between it and personal websites, communities, online publications, micro-portals, news web pages, etc. Because the blog itself is a combination of various original network expressions, it is unrealistic to define this "hybrid" strictly, and we should not get too caught up in * * *. With the evolution, the forms of blogs will become more and more diverse. Someone wrote: "This phenomenon does exist in blog. Many news media (for example, * * *) often use the number of blogger (currently 75,) as a guide to emphasize the phenomenal rise of blogs, regardless of whether their content characteristics conform to blogs. In fact, it is easy for us to think that using weblog tools such as moveable type, greymatter, b2, blogger, pmachine, etc. are all blog. At this point, it doesn't matter whether the blog has features, but what software or service it uses. I even think that it is basically true to say that these softwares or services have contributed to blog madness, but in fact, the whole number and the masses have absorbed all similar activities (regardless of whether you meet any characteristics of blog) into the black hole of blog because of these softwares and services, and crossed those attempts to classify. "

Blog is not a pure technological innovation, but an evolving network application. The natural grassroots nature of blog also determines that it is difficult for us to identify an authentic ancestor of blog, nor can we formally identify who is the "father of blog". Now, no one dares to wear this hat. Otherwise, you will be beaten to death.

Simple Chronology of Blog

June 1993: The oldest prototype of Blog-NCSA's "What's New Page" page (archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/Sofare/Mosaic/Docs/whats-new) mainly lists the index of emerging websites on the Web. This page started in June 1993 and was updated until June 1996.

in January, 1994, Justin Hall started Justin's home page, which soon began to collect all kinds of underground secret links. This important personal website can be regarded as one of the earliest blog sites.

April 1, 1997: Dave Winer started publishing Scripting News. This website evolved from the early Dave, as early as October 7, 1994.

December 1997: Jorn Barger first used the term weblog to describe personal websites that have comments and links and are constantly updated.

May 7, 1998: petermerholz started publishing the website Peter Me (according to his own records).

September 15th, 1998: Memepool was published, and the earliest link was about "Alex Chiu's Eternal Life Device".

1999: Peter Merholz named blog with the abbreviation "blog", which became the most commonly used term today.

on may 28th, 1999, Cam wrote in his personal blog site, Camworld: "Dave Winer started the earliest blog site, and Camworld has no need to hide that he is a model and follows Scripting News."

April 12, 2: The mailing list of Weblogs eGroups was terminated, and the dispute between Jorn Barger and Dave Winer's originator began to become public.

August 22, 2: Wine posted a post on FoRK's mailing list, and an argument broke out.

October, 2: Jakob Neilsen said, "... ordinary blog sites are reluctant to read".

October 14th, 2: Dave Winer hinted that his Scripting News was the earliest blog site, and then he gracefully attributed this honor to his respected predecessor, Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of ——WWW.

November 2: However, Winer soon found himself another laurel. Scripting News changed the slogan of the website to: The longest-running blog website on the Internet, which started on April 1, 1997.

December 17th, 2: UserLand released SuperOpenDirectory, hoping to become a factual tool for directory creation.

September 11th, 21: The World Trade Center was attacked by terrorists, and blogs became an important source of important information and personal experience of the disaster. Since then, blogs have officially entered the mainstream society.

Three stages of blog development (prehistoric stage, primary stage and growth stage)

To sum up, to be precise, the history of blog is as "long" as that of the World Wide Web (WWW). The earliest blog should be Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web. His first website info.cern.ch (of course, it no longer exists, but is preserved as an antique) is actually the first blog website, because the content inside is to list all kinds of websites that appear on the Internet. Then from 1993 to 1996, NCSA and Netscape's "What's New" column also had the embryonic form of blog websites. Of course, we attribute all this to the "prehistoric period" of blogs, and the real history of blogs can start from the middle and late 199s.

the first stage (from the mid-199s to the late 199s): the budding stage, or enlightenment stage.

it is undoubtedly difficult to trace the source of blogs. Some people think that Justin Hall's infamous "online diary" in 1994 can be regarded as an early form of blog. This guy posted his * * * nudity test on the Internet in time, which attracted a lot of attention. Some people say that the online travel diary published by Jesse James Garrett in Camworld in 1998 was the fuse to ignite the blog community, and blog has become a new trend since then. But more people think that the most authentic source of blog is Pyra (the predecessor of Blogger now), which is a small software company. In order to develop a complex "groupware" product, the three founders wrote a small software to keep communication and collaboration with each other by blog. Later, they felt that this simple gadget was also very useful to others, so in August 1999, Blogger software was released online for free. Previously, there were only a few dozen people who could be regarded as bloggers. As a result, as dry wood meets fire, many people use this software as a weapon to enter the blog team. Blog teams began to multiply rapidly. Pyra is also famous for this little software that doesn't care at all. In a word, this stage is mainly a group of IT fans, website designers and news lovers, who are unconscious and have no theoretical system. A certain group has not been formed, and there is no phenomenon.