Where did the term ‘blog’ come from? (A cute little story)

According to an estimate, nearly 7.5 million blog posts are published across various digital platforms every day.¹MasterBlogging, “Blog Posts Published Per Day,” https://masterblogging.com/blog-posts-published-per-dayThis is a whopping number. But have you ever wondered about the journey of blogs to this point? Who envisioned them, and what caused the term ‘blog’ to become one of the most overused yet loved on the Internet? Let’s start digging!

To understand blog, blogging, blogosphere, and whatever else you may want to add, we first need to revisit the good old days—as early as 1994—when Swarthmore college student Justin Hall created Links.net. Populated with his experiences, thoughts, and personal narratives, the blog is still functional and wears a minimalistic look, focusing on content (storytelling) over visual aesthetics.

Going back, the term ‘blog’ was not invented yet. Links.net served as Justin’s personal homepage. Gradually, others—the early adopters of digital waves—began articulating their thoughts in similar ways. Three years later, in 1997, a computer programmer and writer, Jorn Barger, coined the term ‘weblog,’ referring to this growing trend of publishing, storing, and sharing personal experiences online as a “log of the Web” and the process as “logging the Web.”

However, the term ‘blog’ was not coined until 1999, when Peter Merholz, a design and UX expert, writer, and entrepreneur, playfully split the term ‘weblog’ into two parts, creating the phrase “we blog.”² ³ ⁴ This linguistic tweak caught on, and the word ‘blog’—being simple, easy to memorize, and approachable—became popular. In the same year, on August 23, Pyra Labs (Google Blogger since 2003) launched Blogger,⁵ reinforcing the term ‘blog’ and helping to popularize it further.

With time, the Internet started flooding with a host of blogging platforms, such as LiveJournal, TypePad, Movable Type, Blogforyou, WordPress, and others. The land was ripe for a writing revolution since these platforms were readily available to host thoughts, and people were eager to make their stories heard. A wave of creativity emerged as this democratization of publishing happened, gradually paving the way for millions of blogs to appear online.

So, this was a short time wrap on blogging. From a humble beginning, blogging has come a long way, allowing artists, activists, writers, journalists, scientists, politicians, travelers, hobbyists, entrepreneurs, businesses, and many others to share their perspectives for education, entertainment, networking, personal branding, business growth, creative expression, social change, and more!

Today, we have a plethora of variations of the original term, ‘blog.’ Terms like ‘Vlogging,’ ‘Microblogging,’ ‘Podcasting,’ ‘Guest Blogging,’ ‘Link Blogging,’ and ‘Live Blogging’ are ever-growing. But one thing has remained unchanged and must never change: the freedom to let your words be heard—no matter the response!

Long live blogging!

Footnotes

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  MasterBlogging, “Blog Posts Published Per Day,” https://masterblogging.com/blog-posts-published-per-day