Friday, January 2, 2009

So What Is A Blog?

By Don Bethune

The World Wide Web, ever increasing in its popularity, has become a novel way for people to share information with each other. Although people continue to make use of the old standbys of email, instant messenger and chat, they have now begun to communicate in the form of an online journal that allows others to participate and comment on their writing. These journals, or Blogs, are becoming all the rage, some being written by stars and others by corporations.

A blog can be a personal journal that is written online and shared with all and sundry or it can be a forum for your political statements. A blog can allow you to track media events or connect with customers on a more personal level. Family members now have blogs simply as a mechanism to stay involved and in contact with their far flung family members.

Why blog? Well, a blog gives an individual the ability to share their uncensored beliefs on many subjects. A large number of blogs give their readers the ability to respond personally to their various issues. Indeed, a number of blogs are created just to generate debate or absorb readers in the online topic.

Blogs allow their owners to share personal pictures or actual videos of their daily activities. Other blogs have postings by other people who want their thoughts to be visible to a wider audience. Bloggers commonly link to other web sites that they appreciate, or sites owned by their friends, and even web sites owned by visitors that leave comments on the blog.

Blogs can be insanely popular, and garner a lot of website traffic. Some of the most popular web sites on the internet are strictly personal blogs of individuals who we would otherwise have never heard of. People can gain celebrity status just from creating a popular blog.

Authors can earn income from their blogs. The primary method for making your web site profitable is simply advertising. Large numbers of bloggers offer space for advertisements on their site in exchange for a little money. There are also online programs that manage multiple advertising campaigns that bloggers can enroll in, and that provide content-targeted ads which generate money for the blogger for viewership.

Bloggers have a number of ways that they can increase traffic to their web site; some hold competitions or offer exclusive visitor content. Some spend money to obtain website traffic in order to increase their viewership and thus, perhaps, increasing their ad revenue.

So the next time you wonder, really, what is a blog? You know itas now more than just a random collection of someoneas thoughts; it can be informative, entertaining, or thought-provoking. It can create extra income for the author, or if it gets popular enough, even become a full-time job. - 16459

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