About Blogs (web logs)

A weblog , web log or simply a blog , is a web application which contains periodic time-stamped posts on a common webpage . These posts are often but not necessarily in reverse chronological order. Such a website would typically be accessible to any Internet user. "Weblog" is a portmanteau of "web" and "log". The term "blog" came into common use as a way of avoiding confusion with the term server log .

Blogs run from individual diaries to arms of political campaigns , media programs and corporations , and from the writing of one occasional author to the collaboration of a large community of writers. Many weblogs enable visitors to leave public comments, which can lead to a community of readers centered around the blog; others are non-interactive . The totality of weblogs or blog-related websites is usually called the blogosphere . When a large amount of activity, information and opinion erupts around a particular subject or controversy in the blogosphere, it is commonly called a blogstorm or blog swarm .

The format of weblogs varies, from simple bullet lists of hyperlinks , to article summaries with user-provided comments and ratings. Individual weblog entries are almost always date and time-stamped, with the newest post at the top of the page. Because links are so important to weblogs, most blogs have a way of archiving older entries and generating a static address for individual entries; this static link is referred to as a permalink . The latest headlines, with hyperlinks and summaries, are offered in weblogs in the RSS or Atom XML format, to be read with a feed reader.