[wordup] The history of weblogs.

[Adam Shand]

I've had a few people ask me exactly what a weblog is, and what their
significance.  I just stumbled across this history, so if you're curious
here it is.

Adam.

From: http://www.rebeccablood.net/essays/weblog_history.html

weblogs: a history and perspective
7 september 2000

In 1998 there were just a handful of sites of the type that are now
identified as weblogs (so named by Jorn Barger in December 1997). Jesse
James Garrett, editor of Infosift, began compiling a list of "other
sites like his" as he found them in his travels around the web. In
November of that year, he sent that list to Cameron Barrett. Cameron
published the list on Camworld, and others maintaining similar sites
began sending their URLs to him for inclusion on the list. Jesse's 'page
of only weblogs' lists the 23 known to be in existence at the beginning
of 1999.

Suddenly a community sprang up. It was easy to read all of the weblogs
on Cameron's list, and most interested people did. Peter Merholz
announced in early 1999 that he was going to pronounce it 'wee-blog' and
inevitably this was shortened to 'blog' with the weblog editor referred
to as a 'blogger.'

At this point, the bandwagon jumping began. More and more people began
publishing their own weblogs. I began mine in April of 1999. Suddenly it
became difficult to read every weblog every day, or even to keep track
of all the new ones that were appearing. Cameron's list grew so large
that he began including only weblogs he actually followed himself. Other
webloggers did the same. In early 1999 Brigitte Eaton compiled a list of
every weblog she knew about and created the Eatonweb Portal. Brig
evaluated all submissions by a simple criterion: that the site consist
of dated entries. Webloggers debated what was and what was not a weblog,
but since the Eatonweb Portal was the most complete listing of weblogs
available, Brig's inclusive definition prevailed.

This rapid growth continued steadily until July 1999 when Pitas, the
first free build-your-own-weblog tool launched, and suddenly there were
hundreds. In August, Pyra released Blogger, and Groksoup launched, and
with the ease that these web-based tools provided, the bandwagon-jumping
turned into an explosion. Late in 1999 software developer Dave Winer
introduced Edit This Page, and Jeff A. Campbell launched Velocinews. All
of these services are free, and all of them are designed to enable
individuals to publish their own weblogs quickly and easily.

The original weblogs were link-driven sites. Each was a mixture in
unique proportions of links, commentary, and personal thoughts and
essays. Weblogs could only be created by people who already knew how to
make a website. A weblog editor had either taught herself to code HTML
for fun, or, after working all day creating commercial websites, spent
several off-work hours every day surfing the web and posting to her
site. These were web enthusiasts.

Many current weblogs follow this original style. Their editors present
links both to little-known corners of the web and to current news
articles they feel are worthy of note. Such links are nearly always
accompanied by the editor's commentary. An editor with some expertise in
a field might demonstrate the accuracy or inaccuracy of a highlighted
article or certain facts therein; provide additional facts he feels are
pertinent to the issue at hand; or simply add an opinion or differing
viewpoint from the one in the piece he has linked. Typically this
commentary is characterized by an irreverent, sometimes sarcastic tone.
More skillful editors manage to convey all of these things in the
sentence or two with which they introduce the link (making them, as
Halcyon pointed out to me, pioneers in the art and craft of
microcontent). Indeed, the format of the typical weblog, providing only
a very short space in which to write an entry, encourages pithiness on
the part of the writer; longer commentary is often given its own space
as a separate essay.

These weblogs provide a valuable filtering function for their readers.
The web has been, in effect, pre-surfed for them. Out of the myriad web
pages slung through cyberspace, weblog editors pick out the most
mind-boggling, the most stupid, the most compelling.

But this type of weblog is important for another reason, I think. In
Douglas Rushkoff's Media Virus, Greg Ruggerio of the Immediast
Underground is quoted as saying, "Media is a corporate possession...You
cannot participate in the media. Bringing that into the foreground is
the first step. The second step is to define the difference between
public and audience. An audience is passive; a public is participatory.
We need a definition of media that is public in its orientation."

By highlighting articles that may easily be passed over by the typical
web user too busy to do more than scan corporate news sites, by
searching out articles from lesser-known sources, and by providing
additional facts, alternative views, and thoughtful commentary, weblog
editors participate in the dissemination and interpretation of the news
that is fed to us every day. Their sarcasm and fearless commentary
reminds us to question the vested interests of our sources of
information and the expertise of individual reporters as they file news
stories about subjects they may not fully understand.

Weblog editors sometimes contextualize an article by juxtaposing it with
an article on a related subject; each article, considered in the light
of the other, may take on additional meaning, or even draw the reader to
conclusions contrary to the implicit aim of each. It would be too much
to call this type of weblog "independent media," but clearly their
editors, engaged in seeking out and evaluating the "facts" that are
presented to us each day, resemble the public that Ruggerio speaks of.
By writing a few lines each day, weblog editors begin to redefine media
as a public, participatory endeavor.

Now, during 1999 something else happened, and I believe it has to do
with the introduction of Blogger itself.

While weblogs had always included a mix of links, commentary, and
personal notes, in the post-Blogger explosion increasing numbers of
weblogs eschewed this focus on the web-at-large in favor of a sort of
short-form journal. These blogs, often updated several times a day, were
instead a record of the blogger's thoughts: something noticed on the way
to work, notes about the weekend, a quick reflection on some subject or
another. Links took the reader to the site of another blogger with whom
the first was having a public conversation or had met the previous
evening, or to the site of a band he had seen the night before.
Full-blown conversations were carried on between three or five blogs,
each referencing the other in their agreement or rebuttal of the other's
positions. Cults of personality sprung up as new blogs appeared, certain
names appearing over and over in daily entries or listed in the
obligatory sidebar of "other weblogs" (a holdover from Cam's original
list). It was, and is, fascinating to see new bloggers position
themselves in this community, referencing and reacting to those blogs
they read most, their sidebar an affirmation of the tribe to which they
wish to belong.

Why the change? Why so many? I have always suspected that some of the
popularity of this form may be a simple desire to emulate the sites of
head Pyra kids Ev and Meg. As the creators of Blogger, their charming,
witty blogs are their company's foremost advertisement for its most
popular product.

More than that, Blogger itself places no restrictions on the form of
content being posted. Its web interface, accessible from any browser,
consists of an empty form box into which the blogger can
type...anything: a passing thought, an extended essay, or a childhood
recollection. With a click, Blogger will post the...whatever...on the
writer's website, archive it in the proper place, and present the writer
with another empty box, just waiting to be filled.

Contrast this with the web interface of Metafilter, a popular community
weblog. Here, the writer is presented with three form boxes: the first
for the URL of the referenced site, the second for the title of the
entry, and the third for whatever commentary the writer would like to
add. The Metafilter interface instructs the writer to contribute a link
and add commentary; Blogger makes no such demands. Blogger makes it so
easy to type in a thought or reaction that many people are disinclined
to hunt up a link and compose some text around it.

It is this free-form interface combined with absolute ease of use which
has, in my opinion, done more to impel the shift from the filter-style
weblog to journal-style blog than any other factor. And there has been a
shift. Searching for a filter-style weblog by clicking through the
thousands of weblogs listed at weblogs.com, the Eatonweb Portal, or
Blogger Directory can be a Sisyphean task. Newcomers would appear to be
most drawn to the blog rather than filter style of weblogging.

Certainly, both styles still exist; certainly the particular mixture of
links, commentary, and personal observation unique to each individual
site has always given each weblog its distinctive voice and personality;
and certainly the weblog has always been an infinitely malleable format.
But the influx of blogs has changed the definition of weblog from "a
list of links with commentary and personal asides" to "a website that is
updated frequently, with new material posted at the top of the page." I
really wish there were another term to describe the filter-style weblog,
one that would easily distinguish it from the blog. On the principle of
truth in advertising, this would make it much easier for the
adventuresome reader to find the type of weblog he most enjoys.

So, what of the weblog? Is it of interest or importance to anyone who
does not produce one? Well, I think it should be.

A filter-style weblog provides many advantages to its readers. It
reveals glimpses of an unimagined web to those who have no time to surf.
An intelligent human being filters through the mass of information
packaged daily for our consumption and picks out the interesting, the
important, the overlooked, and the unexpected. This human being may
provide additional information to that which corporate media provides,
expose the fallacy of an argument, perhaps reveal an inaccurate detail.
Because the weblog editor can comment freely on what she finds, one week
of reading will reveal to you her personal biases, making her a
predictable source. This further enables us to turn a critical eye to
both the information and comments she provides. Her irreverent attitude
challenges the veracity of the "facts" presented each day by
authorities.

Shortly after I began producing Rebecca's Pocket I noticed two side
effects I had not expected. First, I discovered my own interests. I
thought I knew what I was interested in, but after linking stories for a
few months I could see that I was much more interested in science,
archaeology, and issues of injustice than I had realized. More
importantly, I began to value more highly my own point of view. In
composing my link text every day I carefully considered my own opinions
and ideas, and I began to feel that my perspective was unique and
important.

This profound experience may be most purely realized in the blog-style
weblog. Lacking a focus on the outside world, the blogger is compelled
to share his world with whomever is reading. He may engage other
bloggers in conversation about the interests they share. He may reflect
on a book he is reading, or the behavior of someone on the bus. He might
describe a flower that he saw growing between the cracks of a sidewalk
on his way to work. Or he may simply jot notes about his life: what work
is like, what he had for dinner, what he thought of a recent movie.
These fragments, pieced together over months, can provide an
unexpectedly intimate view of what it is to be a particular individual
in a particular place at a particular time.

The blogger, by virtue of simply writing down whatever is on his mind,
will be confronted with his own thoughts and opinions. Blogging every
day, he will become a more confident writer. A community of 100 or 20 or
3 people may spring up around the public record of his thoughts. Being
met with friendly voices, he may gain more confidence in his view of the
world; he may begin to experiment with longer forms of writing, to play
with haiku, or to begin a creative project--one that he would have
dismissed as being inconsequential or doubted he could complete only a
few months before.

As he enunciates his opinions daily, this new awareness of his inner
life may develop into a trust in his own perspective. His own
reactions--to a poem, to other people, and, yes, to the media--will
carry more weight with him. Accustomed to expressing his thoughts on his
website, he will be able to more fully articulate his opinions to
himself and others. He will become impatient with waiting to see what
others think before he decides, and will begin to act in accordance with
his inner voice instead. Ideally, he will become less reflexive and more
reflective, and find his own opinions and ideas worthy of serious
consideration.

His readers will remember an incident from their own childhood when the
blogger relates a memory. They might look more closely at the other
riders on the train after the blogger describes his impressions of a
fellow commuter. They will click back and forth between blogs and
analyze each blogger's point of view in a multi-blog conversation, and
form their own conclusions on the matter at hand. Reading the views of
other ordinary people, they will readily question and evaluate what is
being said. Doing this, they may begin a similar journey of
self-discovery and intellectual self-reliance.

The promise of the web was that everyone could publish, that a thousand
voices could flourish, communicate, connect. The truth was that only
those people who knew how to code a web page could make their voices
heard. Blogger, Pitas, and all the rest have given people with little or
no knowledge of HTML the ability to publish on the web: to pontificate,
remember, dream, and argue in public, as easily as they send an instant
message. We can't seriously compare the creation of the World Wide Web
itself with the availability of free technology that allows anyone with
a web browser to express their unique, irreproducible vision to the rest
of the world...can we?

In September of 2000 there are thousands of weblogs: topic-oriented
weblogs, alternative viewpoints, astute examinations of the human
condition as reflected by mainstream media, short-form journals, links
to the weird, and free-form notebooks of ideas. Traditional weblogs
perform a valuable filtering service and provide tools for more critical
evaluation of the information available on the web. Free-style blogs are
nothing less than an outbreak of self-expression. Each is evidence of a
staggering shift from an age of carefully controlled information
provided by sanctioned authorities (and artists), to an unprecedented
opportunity for individual expression on a worldwide scale. Each kind of
weblog empowers individuals on many levels.

So why doesn't every bookmark list contain five weblogs? In the
beginning of 1999 it really seemed that by now every bookmark list
would. There was a bit of media attention and new weblogs were being
created every day. It was a small, quick-growing community and it seemed
to be on the edge of a wider awareness. Perhaps the tsunami of new
weblogs created in the wake of Pitas and Blogger crushed the movement
before it could reach critical mass; the sudden exponential growth of
the community rendered it unnavigable. Weblogs, once filters of the web,
suddenly became so numerous they were as confusing as the web itself. A
few more articles appeared touting weblogs as the next big thing. But
the average reader, hopefully clicking through to the Eatonweb portal,
found herself faced with an alphabetical list of a thousand weblogs. Not
knowing where to begin, she quickly retreated back to ABCnews.com.

I don't have an answer. In our age the single page website of an obscure
Turk named Mahir can sweep the web in days. But the unassailable truth
is that corporate media and commercial and governmental entities own
most of the real estate. Dell manages more webpages than all of the
weblogs put together. Sprite's PR machine can point more man-hours to
the promotion of one message--"Obey Your Thirst"--than the combined
man-hours of every weblogger alive. Our strength--that each of us speaks
in an individual voice of an individual vision--is, in the high-stakes
world of carefully orchestrated messages designed to distract and
manipulate, a liability. We are, very simply, outnumbered.

And what, really, will change if we get weblogs into every bookmark
list? As we are increasingly bombarded with information from our
computers, handhelds, in-store kiosks, and now our clothes, the need for
reliable filters will become more pressing. As corporate interests exert
tighter and tighter control over information and even art, critical
evaluation is more essential than ever. As advertisements creep onto
banana peels, attach themselves to paper cup sleeves, and interrupt our
ATM transactions, we urgently need to cultivate forms of self-expression
in order to counteract our self-defensive numbness and remember what it
is to be human.

We are being pummeled by a deluge of data and unless we create time and
spaces in which to reflect, we will be left with only our reactions. I
strongly believe in the power of weblogs to transform both writers and
readers from "audience" to "public" and from "consumer" to "creator."
Weblogs are no panacea for the crippling effects of a media-saturated
culture, but I believe they are one antidote.

rebecca blood
september 2000