Way back on February 18, 2015, I shared my first blog entitled “What Exactly is Healthy Parenting?” From then on, I wrote a blog every week. For the first 200 or so blogs I focused on the needs of parents and caregivers to provide ideas and skills to help them with their parenting. After that I branched out to other topics that caught my fancy, from politics to choosing a therapist to some of the principles of Contextual Therapy. For me, it was mind-boggling to think that I could write something and post it, not knowing who might read it. Reaching this milestone made me reflect on my journey with those who follow me (which I consider an honor) and made me wonder about the story of blogs and blogging. Here is what I discovered.
Cambridge dictionary defines a blog as, “a regular record of your thoughts, opinions, or experiences that you put on the internet for other people to read.” This seemed pretty basic to me. What surprised me is the history of blogging.
According to the website Inbound Blogging, “In 1994, the first blog was created by a college student, Justin Hall, on Links.net. It wasn’t referred to as a blog at the time, but rather as a collection of web pages Justin liked, along with his thoughts on the content the links contained. It didn’t take long for the trend to catch on, with others quickly following Hall’s initiative.” [You can find a copy of it at the end of this blog.]
In October 1998, Open Diary revolutionized personal blogging…it allowed users to not just share but actively engage through comments on others’ work. This marked a departure from individual-focused blogging, ushering in a new era of communal interaction.
In 1999, Peter Merholz shortened ‘weblog’ to ‘blog’ and Evan Williams and Meg Hourihan created the term ‘blogger.’
In 2005 The Huffington Post was founded…It wasn’t only a virtual space where mothers posted parenting content anymore, but also a newsroom for sharing political material and commentary on current affairs.
In 2005, YouTube launched, which was one of the most innovative platforms at the time, solidifying video blogs as a legitimate force.”
The website Master Blogging states that according to the latest statistics, “There are over 600 million blogs in the world. That’s nearly a third of all 1.9 billion websites on the internet. These blogs generate a whopping 7.5 million blog posts per day—that’s over 2.7 billion pieces of content per year.”
InBound Blogging states that, “Blogs are an indispensable element of the internet. In fact, they’re so crucial in today’s virtual world that we have integrated them into our digitized culture. Every reputable company or small business probably runs a blog. You can read blogs about fashion, travel, economics, food, books, business, digital marketing…the list could go on forever. Most internet consumers undoubtedly read at least one blog consistently or are subscribed to one.”
“The publishing platform Blogger in particular catapulted the concept of blogging into the mainstream. Due to its huge success, it was subsequently bought by Google in 2003” (Wayback Machine).
As you can see, blogging came into being only a few decades ago and met a need for people to have a means of reaching out to the world with a wide variety of messages that capture opinions, ideas, suggestions, and heartfelt stories. I think blogging as well as other types of social media allows us to connect with others. Of course an important goal, and I think our responsibility, is to be honorable, honest and caring in whatever we share, appreciating the power of our words to touch the lives of our readers.
I thought the following quote from the book Social Change Now: A Guide for Reflection and Connection by Deepa Iyer, offers us an inspirational message to close out my 500th blog: “Our belief in the promise of social change through connections with one another is why we keep trying after feeling disappointment, why we keep returning after grieving, why we keep fighting after resting. It’s why we keep building after systems fail, why we keep on loving even when we are experiencing heartbreak. It’s why we infuse our efforts with joy, passion, affirmation, and healing. We intuitively know that something better is blooming, growing, emerging–and we want to be part of that momentum, that stream, the journey.”
Thank you for being a reader of my blog. It has been a joy to share my thoughts and research with you. I plan to share with you more blogs in the coming months and years. See you next week!
Invitation for Reflection
- What were some of your reactions to the history information about blogs and blogging? What surprised you? Inspired you?
- Have you written one or more blogs in which you shared your insights?
- Would like to, one day, give it a try? What messages would you like to share? What impact would you like to have?
The first blog (source: Links.net)
Diane Wagenhals
Director Emeritus, Lakeside Global Institute