WordPress: What is a blog?

Mar 26
09:10

2013

Sadhiv Mahandru

Sadhiv Mahandru

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The blogging phenomenon is one of the most remarkable developments of the World Wide Web. It has put web publishing in the hands of millions of people who would otherwise not have the technical know how to get the job done.

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So what is a blog? The term blog is a shortening of the phrase web log. Its history can be traced back to personal journals published on the web as early as 1994. Blogging began to gain popularity in late 1990s and really started taking off around 2004. Today there are over 150 million blogs worldwide. Blog content can be virtually anything you want. While,WordPress: What is a blog? Articles blogging originally gained popularity through the coverage of political topics, blogs now cover everything from the daily goings on in an average person's life, to news analysis prepared by professional bloggers, often in the employment of media giants. 

Although the appearance of a blog may differ based on blogging platform and web based style options, most blogs have a few elements in common. For example, most blogs present their content in reverse chronological order, with the most recent blog articles or posts at the top of the page. Blog posts are usually assigned categories or topics, which are then used to archive old contents, so it can be browsed by topic long after it is scrolled off the homepage. 

Most blogs include links to other resources, including the sources of information discussed in blog posts. In most cases, blog posts are formatted with headings, indented quotes, images, and other common web formatting options to make them easier to read. WordPress was started in 2003 as an open source software project. The WordPress blogging software, which is extremely powerful and completely customizable, can be downloaded for free from the WordPress.org website. 

It requires a reasonable amount of technical know how and a seo web design uk host that meets several software requirements. But the makers of WordPress, Automatic, have also created a service called Wordpress.com, which makes it possible to create a blog in just a few minutes. No server or technical know how is required beyond basic computer and Internet skills. You merely set up a free WordPress.com user account, log on, and set options to create a blog. 

WordPress.com is an excellent web publishing solution for bloggers. It supports all the standard blogging features, including the chronology, automatic archiving by category and date, and formatting options. Its interface offers simple forms and buttons for creating content and customising a blog's navigation features. 

But WordPress.com also goes beyond the basics by including a substantial amount of server storage space for images and non-text content, a large collection of professionally prepared themes that determine overall blog appearance, and a huge community of about 5 million blogs. It also supports multiple user blogs and the ability of a single WordPress.com user to have multiple blogs. WordPress.com offers you almost all the features you would get if you built your own blog from scratch, but without the hassle and expense of setting up a web host.  

I think it's a great solution for creating and maintaining a blog, and I think that by the time you have set up your own, you will agree.

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