Because geek is cool and clever

The fuss about blogs October 21, 2007

Barely a year ago it would have been a tall order to find anyone outside of all but the geekiest of circles who had any idea what a blog was.

Today, some very important people are writing blogs and the word is casually dropped into conversations and news bulletins.

But even though the term has become part of our everyday language, there are still many people I talk to who, although they fundamentally understand what one is, still don’t really see the point in blogs or fully comprehend just why they have become so popular – both to read and to write.

The word ‘blog’ is a contraction of ‘web log’ and it has its origins in online diaries which were initially written and maintained by angst-ridden teenagers.

“Why on earth would anybody be interested in reading someone’s personal diary?” is a question I often hear when explaining blogs to somebody.

Apart from the obvious answer that there has always been something strangely exciting about such voyeurism, modern blogs are far more than just mundane accounts of somebody’s life.

In fact, the word ‘blog’ has become almost meaningless these days. Any site that is regularly updated and presents its content in dated, reverse chronological order, usually with an accompanying RSS feed, could legitimately describe itself as a blog.

And although the diary-style blog still exists, today’s most popular blogs are about particular subjects like music, politics or the news itself.

I’ve heard it said that blogs have become so popular because they give people a voice but this isn’t strictly true. It is, of course, the web – or, more precisely, the internet – that gives the voice. Blogs simply offer an easy entry into the medium.

Until blogging took off, creating a personal website required at least some technical knowledge. You needed space on a web server and at least a rudimentary knowledge of HTML, the language used to make up web pages.

Today, services offered by Google (blogger.com), MySpace, TypePad and WordPress, to name but a few of the most popular, make online publishing an act of utter simplicity.

The next version of Microsoft Word, due out shortly, includes built-in blogging options. The document you have just written can be saved, emailed, printed or published to your website, all from the click of a button.