Comments on: Will Someone Who Actually Cares About Blogging Please Write the History Of it?

By: Joe Ratzkinzin

Joe Ratzkinzin — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 08:32:27 +0000

As I recall, there were things like blogs before there were blogs. People had websites on which they regularly posted new entries with links to new things on the Internet back in 1993. Even before that, there were things like blogs dating back to pre-historic times. Add an RSS feed to caveman drawings and you have Flickr. In 1994, the Drudge Report started as an email newsletter and later became a website that looked exactly like it still does. It was like a blog as it, well, had links to stories appearing on newspaper websites and a long list of links that is sort of what we’d now call a blogroll. Matt Drudge has steadfastly refused to call the Drudge Report a blog, and, frankly, he shouldn’t, because it’s not. In the history of the beginning of blogging, this makes Matt Drudge unique, as everyone else who was doing anything like a blog in the middle 1990s, today wants to say it was the first weblog. Matt Drudge, who could lay claim to the title of first blogger with some fairly convincing arguments — at least better than others — is still insulted when his site is referred to as such.

By: mary hodder

mary hodder — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 01:20:09 +0000

Mike,
I’ve never read crunchnotes before. Cool.

So.. there is someone now writing a book on the history of blogging. I can’t say whom yet, but you know him, and he’s good, and will likely do a great job.

Also, regarding who coined blog, that was Peter Merholtz or Peterme.

mary

By: kyle

kyle — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 16:30:12 +0000

I agree with this guy: If so many bloggers didn’t come off like Comic Book Guy (yeah, I’m referring to several of you here), blogging would be much more successful.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070720.wweb20rvt/BNStory/Technology/home

By: Cordula Lochmann

Cordula Lochmann — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 11:57:37 +0000

Together with to other authors I wrote a book about Social Software (it’s in German - sorry), which contains a chapter about blogs. That’s what we found out:
Justin Hall was the first blogger with his “Justin’s Links from the Underground” (www.links.net - not active anymore). He started his link blog in 1994.
The word “weblog” was first used by Jorn Bargers in 1997 on his website “Robot Wisdom” (www.robotwisdom.com).
Peter Merholz was the first to use “we blog” as the headline for his blog peterme.com (www.peterme.com) in 1999.
Also in 1999 Evan Williams from Pyra Labs founded http://www.blogger.com and started the first software project for bloggers.

By: Vsaka stvar nekam zadene Kdaj je rojstni dan spletnega dnevništva (blogiversary)? «

Wed, 18 Jul 2007 14:38:18 +0000

[...] Wall Street Journal poroča, da so se spletni dnevniki rodili leta 1997, ko je nastal izraz “web log“, prvi pisec spletnega dnevnika pa naj bi bil avtor izraza, John Barger. Z zapisom WSJ se legenda Robert Scoble ne strinja, češ da Barger ni bil prvi. Prvi bolj znani pisec je bil ali Dave Winer ali pa Justin Hall. Glede zgodovine spletnih dnevnikov sta zanimiva zapisa Winerja in Rileya. Robertu Scobleu, Mikeu Arringtonu in Duncanu Rileyu lahko pritrdimo, lahko pa tudi nasprotujemo. [...]

By: A Blog Around The Clock

A Blog Around The Clock — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 16:33:15 +0000

What was the first blog?…

Prompted by the WSJ article about blogs, Scoble, Scott Rosenberg, Duncan Riley, Dave Winer, CrunchNotes and Rex Hammock and others discuss the history of blogging…….

By: James W.

James W. — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 04:11:20 +0000

“Blogging” really began only 6 or so years ago when the term was coined. Before that it was just “writing” or “journaling” (that’s why it’s called liveJOURNAL and not liveBLOG) and was going on years before these dolts care to conceive. The person coined at “first” blogging just wants their ill-gotten 15 minutes of digital fame that will probably be forgotten tomorrow.

By: The Mainstream Media Pisses Off the Blogosphere, Again ¦ Online Media Cultist

Mon, 16 Jul 2007 16:06:12 +0000

[...] There’s a firestorm a-brewin’ over a Wall Street Journal piece that apparently – at least according to old school and (love ‘em or hate ‘em) A List bloggers such as Robert Scoble and Mike Arrington – gets the history of blogging completely wrong. [...]

By: Who Cares Who First Started Blogging? | Marketing Pilgrim

Who Cares Who First Started Blogging? | Marketing Pilgrim — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 15:24:54 +0000

[...] Michael Arrington says… I?m just an observer in this particular battle, but it appears that the WSJ sort of flubbed it today with a hastily written article on the history of blogging… [...]

By: Gerontissa

Gerontissa — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 15:10:21 +0000

Online users were “blogging” (although their individual collections of regular posts were usually called “electronic journals”) as early as 1982 via PARTIcipate on the Source (POTS). So whoever you dig up to write that history of blogging had better go all the way back, or the result will seem equally inaccurate to the many of us who remember the online communities and user publications of the early ’80s.