May 20, 2001
What is a weblog?
There are hundreds of definitions for what a weblog, and the idea is that everyone more or less ends up understanding the subject. A weblog (hereafter referred to as a "blog") is a website that is easy to update. Yes, they have the characteristic that allows blog authors to publish content (text, images, and other files) with just one click. Anyone can edit a blog thanks to the number of tools available on the web to do so. This tool is generally known as a Content Management System (CMS). With this tool, you can update your page from any computer with internet access.
Blogs have a very clear characteristic that distinguishes them from other sites: it is the chronology. This chronology gives them the appearance of a personal diary or a logbook of notes. Starting with the latest topic written and continuing to the beginning, giving the blog a clear and logical order for searching for topics. This allows you to know what people are writing on a certain date or to follow authors. To not waste any more time, I will describe the structure of a blog so you can get an idea of what I am talking about.
Every time an author writes a post, the content management system updates the homepage with the mentioned structure. In addition, it allows you to add the possibility of adding comments, backlinks, and other functionalities that the content management program allows to each entry. Each entry generally has a structure that I will detail now:
- Date
- Title
- Body of the entry
- Permanent link
- Category
- Comments
Date
All blog systems have the date enabled to display it in each entry. It is the basic requirement for each blog: chronological order. The system does this automatically
Title
Every time an author writes a post, they have the option to title it as they please. Titles are generally short and do not exceed 10 or 15 words.
Body of the post
Here, it's up to each author. This is where the author puts their creation. It can range from a simple image to a ten-thousand-word post.
Permanent link
This is another characteristic of blogs - the permanent link. This link goes in each post created by the author. It allows other authors or non-bloggers to reference that particular post. Clicking on this link leads to the individual page of that post.
Category
The category is a functionality that is generally present in blogs to categorize each post. Categorization can be done automatically by dates or manually by the author, who indicates in which categories the post should be placed every time they publish one.
Comments
Depending on the policy of each blogger, they may or may not include the possibility of leaving comments or annotations on each post. This can vary, but as you can see on this blog, comments are available for each post.
The "Blogger"
The author of a blog is commonly referred to as a blogger. This person is responsible for running the show and has absolute control over their blog. Blogs are usually run by one person, although there are more and more variations of blogs run by two or more people. These are known as group blogs.