The Earliest Blog

The first known blogs were used by Usenet, which is a global Internet discussion system that is still in use today. Through Usenet, members could post within a newsgroup that were much like a discussion forum. One of these newsgroups, however, was a bit different.

Mod.ber, as the newsgroup was called, was managed by a man by the name of Brian E. Redman, which is where the “ber” portion of the newsgroup was derived. Redman and a few of his associates routinely posted summaries of some of the more interesting threads and postings that they came upon on the Internet.

This first known blog has many of the features we now commonly associated with blogging. Unfortunately, it only managed to stay afloat for about eight months.

Online Diaries Continue the Blogging Evolutions

After Redman’s attempt at a sort of blogging system, maintaining online diaries started to gain in popularity. The term “blog” was not yet invented at this time, so most writers of these journals referred to themselves simply as journalists or as diarists.

One of the earliest bloggers known to maintain one of these online diaries was Justin Hall. Hall began writing an online diary in 1994 when he was a student at Swarthmore College. Unlike Redman, however, Hall managed to maintain his blog for eleven years.

Other online journals also began to appear in the mid-90s. John Carmack, who is a well known game developer responsible for the creation of games like Doom, Wolfenstein 3D, and Quake, started an online journal that was widely read.

Blogging Becomes a Moneymaker

It didn’t take long before some started to realize that blogging could be a potential moneymaker. In fact, in 1997, Steve Gibson was hired by Ritual Entertainment to maintain a blog on their site. This made Gibson the first known blogger to be hired to complete the job.

Corporations soon took notice as well, realizing that providing a news section on their site helped keep their customers informed and encouraged them to visit their sites more often. New companies have sprouted up recently to act as go-between service advertising agencies and make it easier for companies to start advertising on internet blogs. The Institute for Public Accuracy is known to be one of the first sites to begin regularly posting news tidbits, which is started to do back in 1998.

Blogging Gets Easier

During its early stages, posting information in reverse chronological order on a regular basis to the website was a somewhat difficult task. When blog hosting was developed, however, the process became much easier for a less technical population to participate in. Some of the blog hosting services to hit the scene in the mid to late 90s included WordPress, blogger, Movable Type, and LiveJournal. Some regular web hosting services also offered blog hosting services, such as DreamHost.

It took all the way until 1997, however, before the term “blog: was developed. The word as actually jokingly used by Jorn Barger when he broke the word weblog into two words, “we blog,” and posted it on the sidebar of his own blog. The term quickly caught on and has been in use ever since.

Shortly after the “blog” term was created, Open Diary was launched. This online blogging community was the first to make it possible for readers to post comments on blogs, an important feature that remains a part of most blogs today.

Blogging Gets Serious

In the early part of the 21 st century, blogging started to turn toward some more serious themes. In fact, numerous politically-based blogs were developed in 2001, many of which were quite popular.

A variety of different “how-to” manuals also began to pop up in the world of blogging and soon, the blogging community was viewed as an important component of our society. In fact, respectable journalism schools started to research the trend in order to compare blogging to the art of journalism.

Blogs have continued to garner the attention of vast numbers of people, particularly those that focus on important issues. Even politicians have turned to blogging as a means of expressing their opinions and building and maintaining relationships with their supporters.

Blogs have also developed into a means to place political pressure on candidates and other individuals in places of power. At the same time, they serve as a light-hearted means for people to simply share their every day experiences or as a method for shrewd entrepreneurs to make money online.