Weblogs: Simplifying Web Publishing

A weblog—blog, for short—is a Web site that uses a dated log format to publish periodical information. The updates are frequent, usually daily, according to the site owner's editorial purposes—or whims. Blogs contribute to Web content by linking and filtering evolving content in a structured way and by establishing interlinked com-munities—the blogosphere—connect-ing people through shared interests. Bloggers can link to news feeds, personal journals, and topic-specific blogs of almost every sort. Figure 1 shows a sample news blog for the Texas A&M University System's Health Science Center. The number of blogs is growing exponentially—from a handful in 1998, according to an informal history popular in the blog community (www.rebeccablood.net/essays/weblog _history.html), to more than a million in 2003, according to Technorati (www.technorati.com), a blog that tracks change activity at a rate of 150,000 blogs per hour. SlashDot is probably the best-known technology-specific blog. Table 1 lists a few other topic-centric blogs. There are two basic blog styles: filters and journals. The filter style focuses on a collection of links to other Web sites. The journal style is an online personal diary with dated entries presented in a " stream of consciousness. " Both styles use headlines and ex-cerpts—putting the most recent entry at the top of the Web page—to entice readers to investigate further. Blogging systems are emerging tools that make it easier to set up a blog; to update, distribute, and archive its information; and to enhance its func-tionality. Historically, the Internet has followed the separation of consumer and producer roles perpetuated in the mass media. According to this model, content consumers needed minimal skills and resources, while producers required production expertise and sophisticated tools to control content presentation and substance. The blogosphere has expanded the roles of both consumers and producers. Consumers can subscribe to any blogs that interest them simply by linking to them through a syndication protocol that automatically updates content. Consumers can customize their subscriptions for both format and content. They can also produce content by augmenting existing articles with their own comments through templates that blog-ging systems provide. Blog administrators define and control the processes for posting blog content on their sites. Blogging systems provide an array of tools and templates for administering the site. Site administrators can restrict content production on a per-user basis. Producing relevant, navigable Web content requires technical and artistic capabilities that are beyond the expertise of most Web users, who …