There is a plethora of blogs circling the internet (over 70 million based on one count back in 2005) and bloggers are blogging on about as many topics as there are blogs in existence, but what exactly is a “blog”? 

Blog is short for “web log” and is essentially an online diary, where you can post up text, images and video clips, among other items, to your website. Generally a blog site will have entries (or ‘”posts”) on a particular theme, it allows the reader to leave a comment in response to the post, and there are usually links to other blogs or websites of interest.

There are many blogs about not very much, but others can be quite amazing and informative. Blogging was mainly popular
amongst personal users, however more and more businesses are also using this medium to communicate with clients and the community (see Tower Systems, or even our blog). If you’d like to see some examples of blogs, for lovers of photography,Chromasia is the blog of a photographer – he posts one image per day with a short commentary. Loobylu is quite a cute blog from an Australian mum.To see what blogs exist that may tickle your fancy, Technorati is a great place to start. Just search on a keyword, and see what appears. For something a little more photographically inclined (a personal favourite), you can’t go past Photoblogs.org.

 
Whether you want to keep everyone updated on your travels through Europe, or want to post your thoughts on a topic close to your heart, a blog could be the option for you. If you are inspired to start your own blog, the process is quite simple and there are many free blog sites available, complete with ready-made templates for you to upload your text and images to (thankfully, gone are the days of having to be a web developer in order to create a blog – just upload and go). Have a look at www.blogger.com or spaces.msn.com for ideas and instructions.