What is a blog, and how common are they?

Wikipedia defines blogs as:

• A blog (a contraction of the term weblog) is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse chronological order. “Blog” can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

The Blogosphere is the collective community of all blogs. There have been a number of studies aimed at understanding the size of the Blogosphere. As of August 2008, blog search engine Technirati was tracking more than 188.9 million blogs! As the Blogosphere grows in size and influence, the lines between what is a blog and what is a mainstream media site becomes less clear. Larger blogs are taking on more characteristics of mainstream sites and mainstream sites are incorporating styles and formats from the Blogosphere. In fact, 95% of the top 100 US newspapers have reporter blogs.

The size of the Blogosphere may be uncertain, however it is clear that blogs are a global phenomenon that are here to stay!

We at RPL Data Management would like to hear from you, so join the Blogosphere and enter a comment, start a discussion or challenge us!