1 ELECTRONIC COMMERCE

BLOGGING
A blog (a contraction of the term "web log") 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.
Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more
personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, Web pages,
and other media related to its topic. The ability of readers to leave comments in an interactive format
is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (Art
blog), photographs (photo blog), videos (Video blogging), music (MP3 blog), and audio
(podcasting). Micro blogging is another type of blogging, featuring very short posts.
As of December 2009, blog search engine Technorati was tracking more than 112,000,000 blogs.

History

The term "weblog" was coined by Jorn Barger on 17 December 1997. The short form, "blog," was
coined by Peter Merholz, who jokingly broke the word weblog into the phrase we blog in the sidebar
of his blog Peterme.com in April or May 1999. Shortly thereafter, Evan Williams at Pyra Labs used
"blog" as both a noun and verb ("to blog," meaning "to edit one's weblog or to post to one's weblog")
and devised the term "blogger" in connection with Pyra Labs' Blogger product, leading to the
popularization of the terms.

Origins

Before blogging became popular, digital communities took many forms, including Usenet,
commercial online services such as GEnie, BiX and the early CompuServe, e-mail lists and Bulletin
Board Systems (BBS). In the 1990s, Internet forum software, created running conversations with
"threads." Threads are topical connections between messages on a virtual "corkboard."

The modern blog evolved from the online diary, where people would keep a running account of their
personal lives. Most such writers called themselves diarists, journalists, or journalers. Justin Hall, who
began personal blogging in 1994 while a student at Swarthmore College, is generally recognized as
one of the earliest bloggers, as is Jerry Pournelle. Dave Winer's Scripting News is also credited with
being one of the oldest and longest running weblogs. Another early blog was Wearable Wireless
Webcam, an online shared diary of a person's personal life combining text, video, and pictures
transmitted live from a wearable computer and EyeTap device to a web site in 1994. This practice of
semi-automated blogging with live video together with text was referred to as sousveillance, and such
journals were also used as evidence in legal matters.

Early blogs were simply manually updated components of common Web sites. However, the
evolution of tools to facilitate the production and maintenance of Web articles posted in reverse
chronological order made the publishing process feasible to a much larger, less technical, population.
Ultimately, this resulted in the distinct class of online publishing that produces blogs we recognize
today. For instance, the use of some sort of browser-based software is now a typical aspect of
2 ELECTRONIC COMMERCE

"blogging". Blogs can be hosted by dedicated blog hosting services, or they can be run using blog
software, or on regular web hosting services.

Rise In Popularity

After a slow start, blogging rapidly gained in popularity. Blog usage spread during 1999 and the years
following, being further popularized by the near-simultaneous arrival of the first hosted blog tools:

Bruce Ableson launched Open Diary in October 1998, which soon grew to thousands of online
diaries. Open Diary innovated the reader comment, becoming the first blog community where readers
could add comments to other writers' blog entries.

Brad Fitzpatrick started LiveJournal in March 1999.

Andrew Smales created Pitas.com in July 1999 as an easier alternative to maintaining a "news page"
on a Web site, followed by Diaryland in September 1999, focusing more on a personal diary
community.

Evan Williams and Meg Hourihan (Pyra Labs) launched blogger.com in August 1999 (purchased by
Google in February 2003)

Types
There are many different types of blogs, differing not only in the type of content, but also in the way
that content is delivered or written.

Personal Blogs

The personal blog, an ongoing diary or commentary by an individual, is the traditional, most common
blog. Personal bloggers usually take pride in their blog posts, even if their blog is never read. Blogs
often become more than a way to just communicate; they become a way to reflect on life, or works of
art. Blogging can have a sentimental quality. Few personal blogs rise to fame and the mainstream, but
some personal blogs quickly garner an extensive following. One type of personal blog, referred to as a
micro blog, is extremely detailed and seeks to capture a moment in time. Some sites, such as Twitter,
allow bloggers to share thoughts and feelings instantaneously with friends and family, and are much
faster than emailing or writing.

Corporate and Organizational Blogs

A blog can be private, as in most cases, or it can be for business purposes. Blogs used internally to
enhance the communication and culture in a corporation or externally for marketing, branding or
public relations purposes are called corporate blogs. Similar blogs for clubs and societies are called
club blogs, group blogs, or by similar names; typical use is to inform members and other interested
parties of club and member activities.

Microblogging 

Microblogging is a form of blogging. A microblog differs from a traditional blog in that its content is
typically much smaller, in both actual size and aggregate file size. A microblog entry could consist of
nothing but a short sentence fragment, or an image or embedded video.
3 ELECTRONIC COMMERCE

As with traditional blogging, microbloggers post about topics ranging from the simple, such as "what
I'm doing right now," to the thematic, such as "sports cars." Commercial microblogs also exist, to
promote websites, services and/or products, and to promote collaboration within an organisation.
Some microblogging services offer features such as privacy settings, which allow users to control who
can read their micro blogs, or alternative ways of publishing entries besides the web-based interface.
These may include text messaging, instant messaging, E-mail, or digital audio.

Sideblog
A sideblog is a feature on a website, particularly a blog, which allows one to communicate smaller
snippets of information than an actual blog post. The reasoning is that a blog post will require
thought, argument and some semantic structuring of the post, while a sideblog typically displays
"brief asides". A sideblog is meant to illustrate your immediate thoughts, movements or status update,
and is usually less than 200characters. Where a blog post may be compared to a newspaper opinion
piece, a sideblog would be akin to the "news in brief" column.
Sideblogging is wedded to the concept of micro-blogging, where one posts brief snippets to interested
observers via text messaging, instant messaging, email or the web. Using the same tools, one can post
to one's micro-blog and to one's sideblog simultaneously. Most sideblogs are actually embedded
micro-blogs that appear in a small sidebar box next to the main blog posts and use feeds or plugins to
display the content.
Frequently updating one's status and frame of mind in an online platform to be viewed by friends
gained widespread adoption through social networking tools like FaceBook and MySpace. While
those tools are still largely desktop-bound, micro-blogs (and, by extension, sideblogs) are designed to
be updated from mobile devices as well as desktop computers. Therefore it is more convenient to post
one's status with a simple text message, and interested parties can note your status by browsing your
sideblog or receiving a text or instant messaging alert.

Social Blogging
Social blogging is a popular concept developed due to the advances of weblogging, micro-blogging,
and social networking. These ever-changing constructions represent the new way of communicating
for people who like to express their activities and share their common interests.
On social blogs people inform each other about their activities by providing them with updates
continually. These updates often include text (around 140 characters), pictures, audio or video.
Through several ways messages can be transmitted to social blogs, including the web, instant
messaging, text messaging and e-mail.
Social blogging serves as a useful weight loss tool, as its inherent form allows for continuous updates
on calorie intake and exercise completed throughout the day. Acting as a virtual support system,
Twitter and various blog communities have assisted many people in losing a great deal of weight.

By Genre
Some blogs focus on a particular subject, such as political blogs, travel blogs (also known as
travelogs), house blogs, fashion blogs, project blogs, education blogs, niche blogs, classical
music blogs, quizzing blogs and legal blogs (often referred to as a blawgs) or dream logs.
Two common types of genre blogs are art blogs and music blogs. A blog featuring
4 ELECTRONIC COMMERCE

discussions especially about home and family is not uncommonly called a mom blog. While
not a legitimate type of blog, one used for the sole purpose of spamming is known as a Splog.

By Media Type

A blog comprising videos is called a vlog, one comprising links is called a linklog, a site containing a
portfolio of sketches is called a sketchblog or one comprising photos is called a photoblog. Blogs with
shorter posts and mixed media types are called tumblelogs. Blogs that are written on typewriters and
then scanned are called typecast or typecast blogs; see typecasting (blogging).

By Device

Blogs can also be defined by which type of device is used to compose it. A blog written by a mobile
device like a mobile phone or PDA could be called a moblog. One early blog was Wearable Wireless
Webcam, an online shared diary of a person's personal life combining text, video, and pictures
transmitted live from a wearable computer and EyeTap device to a web site. This practice of semi-
automated blogging with live video together with text was referred to as sousveillance. Such journals
have been used as evidence in legal matters.

Community and Cataloging

The Blogosphere

The collective community of all blogs is known as the blogosphere. Since all blogs are on the
internet by definition, they may be seen as interconnected and socially networked, through
blogrolls, comments, linkbacks (refbacks, trackbacks or pingbacks) and backlinks.
Discussions "in the blogosphere" are occasionally used by the media as a gauge of public
opinion on various issues. Because new, untapped communities of bloggers can emerge in the
space of a few years, Internet marketers pay close attention to "trends in the blogosphere".

Blog Search Engines

Several blog search engines are used to search blog contents, such as Bloglines, BlogScope,
and Technorati. Technorati, which is among the most popular blog search engines, provides
current information on both popular searches and tags used to categorize blog postings. The
research community is working on going beyond simple keyword search, by inventing new
ways to navigate through huge amounts of information present in the blogosphere, as
demonstrated by projects like BlogScope.

Blogging Communities and Directories

Several online communities exist that connect people to blogs and bloggers to other bloggers,
including BlogCatalog and MyBlogLog. Interest-specific blogging platforms are also
available. For instance, Blogster has a sizable community of political bloggers among its
members.
5 ELECTRONIC COMMERCE

Blogging and Advertising

It is common for blogs to feature advertisements either to financially benefit the blogger or to promote
the blogger's favorite causes. The popularity of blogs has also given rise to "fake blogs" in which a
company will create a fictional blog as a marketing tool to promote a product.

Popularity

The popular US-based sports blog, "Sports Photo of the Day".

Researchers have analyzed the dynamics of how blogs become popular. There are essentially two
measures of this: popularity through citations, as well as popularity through affiliation (i.e. blogroll).
The basic conclusion from studies of the structure of blogs is that while it takes time for a blog to
become popular through blogrolls, permalinks can boost popularity more quickly, and are perhaps
more indicative of popularity and authority than blogrolls, since they denote that people are actually
reading the blog's content and deem it valuable or noteworthy in specific cases.

The blogdex project was launched by researchers in the MIT Media Lab to crawl the Web and gather
data from thousands of blogs in order to investigate their social properties. It gathered this information
for over 4 years, and autonomously tracked the most contagious information spreading in the blog
community, ranking it by recency and popularity. It can therefore be considered the first instantiation
of a memetracker. The project is no longer active, but a similar function is now served by
tailrank.com.

Blogs are given rankings by Technorati based on the number of incoming links and Alexa Internet
based on the Web hits of Alexa Toolbar users. In August 2006, Technorati found that the most linked-
to blog on the internet was that of Chinese actress Xu Jinglei. Chinese media Xinhua reported that this
blog received more than 50 million page views, claiming it to be the most popular blog in the world.
Technorati rated Boing Boing to be the most-read group-written blog.

Blurring With The Mass Media

Many bloggers, particularly those engaged in participatory journalism, differentiate themselves from
the mainstream media, while others are members of that media working through a different channel.
Some institutions see blogging as a means of "getting around the filter" and pushing messages directly
to the public. Some critics worry that bloggers respect neither copyright nor the role of the mass
media in presenting society with credible news. Bloggers and other contributors to user-generated
content are behind Time magazine naming their 2006 person of the year as "you".

Many mainstream journalists, meanwhile, write their own blogs — well over 300, according to
CyberJournalist.net's J-blog list. The first known use of a blog on a news site was in August 1998,
when Jonathan Dube of The Charlotte Observer published one chronicling Hurricane Bonnie.

Some bloggers have moved over to other media. The following bloggers (and others) have appeared
on radio and television: Duncan Black (known widely by his pseudonym, Atrios), Glenn Reynolds
(Instapundit), Markos Moulitsas Zúniga (Daily Kos), Alex Steffen (Worldchanging) and Ana Marie
Cox (Wonkette). In counterpoint, Hugh Hewitt exemplifies a mass-media personality who has moved
in the other direction, adding to his reach in "old media" by being an influential blogger. Equally
6 ELECTRONIC COMMERCE

many established authors, for example Mitzi Szereto have started using Blogs to not only update fans
on their current works but also to expand into new areas of writing.

Blogs have also had an influence on minority languages, bringing together scattered speakers and
learners; this is particularly so with blogs in Gaelic languages. Minority language publishing (which
may lack economic feasibility) can find its audience through inexpensive blogging.

Legal and Social Consequences

Blogging can result in a range of legal liabilities and other unforeseen consequences.

Defamation or Liability

Several cases have been brought before the national courts against bloggers concerning issues of
defamation or liability. U.S. payouts related to blogging totaled $17.4 million by 2009; in some cases
these have been covered by umbrella insurance. The courts have returned with mixed verdicts.
Internet Service Providers (ISPs), in general, are immune from liability for information that originates
with third parties (U.S. Communications Decency Act and the EU Directive 2000/31/EC).

In January 2007, two prominent Malaysian political bloggers, Jeff Ooi and Ahiruddin Attan, were
sued by pro-government newspaper, The New Straits Times Press (Malaysia) Berhad, Kalimullah bin
Masheerul Hassan, Hishamuddin bin Aun and Brenden John a/l John Pereira over an alleged
defamation. The plaintiff was supported by the Malaysian government. Following the suit, the
Malaysian government proposed to "register" all bloggers in Malaysia in order to better control
parties against their interest.This is the first such legal case against bloggers in the country.

In the United States, blogger Aaron Wall was sued by Traffic Power for defamation and publication
of trade secrets in 2005. According to Wired Magazine, Traffic Power had been "banned from Google
for allegedly rigging search engine results." Wall and other "white hat" search engine optimization
consultants had exposed Traffic Power in what they claim was an effort to protect the public. The case
was watched by many bloggers because it addressed the murky legal question of who is liable for
comments posted on blogs. The case was dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction, and Traffic
Power failed to appeal within the allowed time.

In 2009, a controversial and landmark decision by The Hon. Mr Justice Eady refused to grant an order
to protect the anonymity of Richard Horton.

In 2009, NDTV issued a legal notice to Indian blogger Chetan Kunte for "abusive free speech"
regarding a blog post criticizing their coverage of the Mumbai attacks.[35] The blogger
unconditionally withdrew his post, replacing it with legal undertaking and an admission that his post
had been "defamatory and untrue" which resulted in several Indian bloggers criticizing NDTV for
trying to silence critics.
7 ELECTRONIC COMMERCE

Employment

Employees who blog about elements of their place of employment raise the issue of employee
branding, since their activities can begin to affect the brand recognition of their employer. In general,
attempts by employee bloggers to protect themselves by maintaining anonymity have proved
ineffective.

In late 2004, Ellen Simonetti was fired for what was deemed by her employer, Delta Air Lines, to be
inappropriate material on her blog. She subsequently wrote a book based on her blog.

Delta Air Lines fired flight attendant Ellen Simonetti because she posted photographs of herself in
uniform on an airplane and because of comments posted on her blog "Queen of Sky: Diary of a Flight
Attendant" which the employer deemed inappropriate. This case highlighted the issue of personal
blogging and freedom of expression vs. employer rights and responsibilities, and so it received wide
media attention. Simonetti took legal action against the airline for "wrongful termination, defamation
of character and lost future wages". The suit was postponed while Delta was in bankruptcy
proceedings (court docket).
In early 2006, Erik Ringmar, a tenured senior lecturer at the London School of Economics, was
ordered by the convenor of his department to "take down and destroy" his blog in which he discussed
the quality of education at the school.

Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, was fined during the 2006 NBA playoffs for criticizing
NBA officials on the court and in his blog.

Mark Jen was terminated in 2005 after 10 days of employment as an Assistant Product Manager at
Google for discussing corporate secrets on his personal blog, then called 99zeros and hosted on the
Google-owned Blogger service. He blogged about unreleased products and company finances a week
before the company's earnings announcement. He was fired two days after he complied with his
employer's request to remove the sensitive material from his blog.

In India, blogger Gaurav Sabnis resigned from IBM after his posts exposing the false claims of a
management school, IIPM, led to management of IIPM threatening to burn their IBM laptops as a
sign of protest against him.

Jessica Cutler, aka "The Washingtonienne", blogged about her sex life while employed as a
congressional assistant. After the blog was discovered and she was fired, she wrote a novel based on
her experiences and blog: The Washingtonienne: A Novel. Cutler is presently being sued by one of
her former lovers in a case that could establish the extent to which bloggers are obligated to protect
the privacy of their real life associates.

Catherine Sanderson, a.k.a. Petite Anglaise, lost her job in Paris at a British accountancy firm because
of blogging. Although given in the blog in a fairly anonymous manner, some of the descriptions of the
firm and some of its people were less than flattering. Sanderson later won a compensation claim case
against the British firm, however.

On the other hand, Penelope Trunk wrote an upbeat article in the Boston Globe back in 2006, entitled
"Blogs 'essential' to a good career". She was one of the first journalists to point out that a large portion
of bloggers are professionals and that a well-written blog can help attract employers.
8 ELECTRONIC COMMERCE

Personal Safety

One consequence of blogging is the possibility of attacks or threats against the blogger, sometimes
without apparent reason. Kathy Sierra, author of the innocuous blog Creating Passionate Users, was
the target of such vicious threats and misogynistic insults that she canceled her keynote speech at a
technology conference in San Diego, fearing for her safety. While a blogger's anonymity is often
tenuous, Internet trolls who would attack a blogger with threats or insults can be emboldened by
anonymity. Sierra and supporters initiated an online discussion aimed at countering abusive online
behavior and developed a blogger's code of conduct.

List of Blog Search Engines

Search engines dedicated to a specific kind of information

 Amatomu
 Bloglines
 BlogScope
 IceRocket
 Sphere
 Technorati

Blog Software

Weblog software (also called blogging software or blogware) is software designed to simplify the
creation and maintenance of weblogs. As specialized content management systems, weblog
applications support the authoring, editing, and publishing of blog posts and comments, with special
functions for image management, web syndication, and moderation of posts and comments.

Server Models
Many weblog applications can be downloaded and installed on user systems. Some of them are
provided under a free-software or open-source licenses, allowing them to be used, modified, and
redistributed freely. Others are proprietary software which must be licensed.
Other weblog applications are offered only through their developers' hosts, either free of charge or for
a fee. Services are typically limited to hosting of the blog itself, but some services offer the option of
using the hosted software to update a blog published elsewhere.

Clients
Maintenance through the Internet is a nearly universal feature of weblog software. This is usually
done through a browser-based interface, enabling authors to create and update content on the site.
Most software also supports the use of external client software to update content using
common APIs such as the MetaWeblog API and the Atom Publishing Protocol. Third party
developers have created many such clients, allowing bloggers to publish entries using desktop
software rather than the web-based interface. The WordPress website has an extensive list of clients
that support most APIs (not just WordPress). Examples include ecto and MarsEdit.
9 ELECTRONIC COMMERCE

Features of Blogging Clients

Post and comment management

All weblog software supports authoring, editing, and publishing of entries in the following format.

 Title, the main title, or headline, of the post.

 Body, main content of the post.
 Permalink, the URL of the full, individual article.
 Post Date, date and time the post was published.
Blog entries can optionally include the following:

 Comments – Comments allow readers to discuss blog entries, correcting errors or otherwise
expressing their opinions on the post or the post's subject.
 Categories (or tags) – indexes to subjects discussed by the entry
 Trackback and or pingback – links to other sites that refer to the entry

Other Features

Most weblog applications also have various linking and web syndication features. Web syndication is
usually offered in the form of RSS orAtom. This allows other software (such as feed aggregators) to
maintain a current summary of the blog's content. Some services and organizations also offer
extended features to aid communication, such as the wiki capabilities in Socialtext and Traction
TeamPage.

Most weblog applications support English and many other languages. The user selects a language
during installation.

Post moderation requires users to register before commenting, or requires individual posts or

comments to be approved by a moderator or administrator before they appear in the blog. Weblog
applications use various user account systems that allow readers to post comments to a particular
blog. For instance, users with Blogger accounts may comment on any Blogger blog. Other weblog
applications allow users to post content or comments only to blogs where they have an account.

The posting API varies among different weblog applications. The typical interface is a form to be
filled out online, with a varying number of fields. Applications such as Movable Type offer a greater
number of form fields and choices than applications such as Blogger. Some applications also have
plugins for Firefox that integrate into the browser's menus so that right clicking on selected text on
any given web page brings up a small window that allows the user to post directly to their blog.

Most types of blogware support adding thumbnail images within blog posts. Photo blogging is a
separate genre of blogging that deals primarily with images.
10 ELECTRONIC COMMERCE

User Hosted Platforms

Software packages installed by weblog authors to run on their own servers.

Free and open source software

These software packages are offered as free and open source software:

 Apache Roller (Java-based)
 b2evolution (PHP/MySQL)
 blosxom (Perl)
 Dotclear (PHP)
 DotNetNuke (VB.NET/ASP.NET)
 Drupal (PHP)
 Elgg (PHP)
 Frog CMS (PHP)
 Geeklog (PHP)
 Habari (PHP)
 Jaws (PHP)
 Joomla! (PHP)
 LifeType (PHP)
 Livejournal (Perl)
 Movable Type (Perl)
 Nucleus CMS (PHP)
 Pebble (Java-based)
 PivotX (PHP)
 Sandbox (PHP)
 Serendipity (PHP)
 Slash (Perl)
 Subtext (C#/ASP.NET)
 Textpattern (PHP/MySQL)
 Thingamablog (Static web page, no need for CGI, PHP or MySQL)
 Typo (Ruby on Rails)
 WordPress (PHP)

Developer-Hosted Platforms
Software services operated by the developer, requiring no software installation by the weblog author:

 Blogger
 uCoz
 doomby
 Gandi
 Posterous
 LiveJournal
 Maneno
11 ELECTRONIC COMMERCE

 Moxietype
 MySpace
 Open Diary
 Skyrock
 Tumblr
 TypePad
 Vox
 weBlog.com
 Windows Live Spaces
 Wordpress.com
 Xanga
 servertoday.com

HOW TO CREATE AN EFFECTIVE BLOG

Step 1: Choose free blogging software.

 6 Questions Bloggers Should Ask Themselves When Choosing a Blogging Software

I. What Are Your Goals for Your Blog?
Do you want to blog for fun or are you trying to make money or build a popular, highly-trafficked
blog? The blogging software you choose is largely dependent upon your goals for your blog. Ask
yourself the following questions to determine your goals for your blog:
 How much space will you need to store your blog's images and content?
 Do you want to display ads on your blog?
 Do you want to add forums and other features to your blog?
II. Do You Need to Significantly Customize Your Blog's Design?
Blogging software varies in terms of its ability to allow bloggers to customize the appearance and
layout of their blogs with logos, specific fonts, designs and more. It's important that you determine the
amount of customization you want and need for your blog before you select your blogging software.

III. Are You or Is Someone You Know Technical?

Different blogging software platforms require varying amounts of technical skill and knowledge.
While there are blogging software options that even the most technically-challenged people can
navigate and use successfully, many of the blogging software packages that provide advanced
customization and features require at least some technical ability.

IV. Will Your Blog Have Multiple Authors?

Some blogging software platforms are easier to configure with multiple authors than others.
Determine your author needs before you choose your blogging software.

V. Do You Need Custom Email Addresses Tied to Your Blog's Domain Name?
If you want to have email addresses customized to match your blog's domain name than your
blogging software options are more limited. Even if this is something you may not need in the short
term, it's important to think about it now before you choose your blogging software.
12 ELECTRONIC COMMERCE

VI. Do You Have Money to Spend Each Month on Blogging Software and a Blog Host?
Your budget will have a significant impact on the blogging software you choose. While there are
many free blogging software platforms available online, those free blogging programs typically offer
limited features. Although those limited features are usually adequate for the average blogger, they
may not be enough for your blog depending on your long term goals for it.

Step 2: Register for an account and create your blog

Step 3: Select Your Domain, Theme and Other Options.

During the registration process for your new blog account, you'll need to choose adomain
name and blog theme. You also might want to take a few minutes before you actually start blogging
to customize some of the other preferences for your blog that your blogging software allows you to
modify such as the author name, commentmoderation process, and so on. However, you're not
required to do any customization before you start publishing blog posts.

Step 4: Start blogging.

Once you've completed steps 1-3, you're ready to join the blogosphere and start publishing content on
your blog. There are many more ways you can customize your blog with plug-ins, feeds, blogrolls,
and more, but these four easy steps are all you need to follow in order to start a simple blog.
13 ELECTRONIC COMMERCE

Table of Contents
BLOGGING.............................................................................................................................................1
History...............................................................................................................................................1
Origins...............................................................................................................................................1
Rise In Popularity...............................................................................................................................2
Types.............................................................................................................................................2
Personal Blogs...............................................................................................................................2
Corporate and Organizational Blogs..............................................................................................2
Microblogging................................................................................................................................2
Sideblog.........................................................................................................................................3
Social Blogging...............................................................................................................................3
By Genre........................................................................................................................................3
By Media Type...............................................................................................................................4
By Device.......................................................................................................................................4
Community and Cataloging...............................................................................................................4
The Blogosphere................................................................................................................................4
Blog Search Engines...........................................................................................................................4
Blogging Communities and Directories..............................................................................................4
Blogging and Advertising...............................................................................................................5
Popularity..........................................................................................................................................5
Blurring With The Mass Media......................................................................................................5
Legal and Social Consequences.........................................................................................................6
Defamation or Liability..................................................................................................................6
Employment..................................................................................................................................7
Personal Safety..............................................................................................................................8
List of Blog Search Engines................................................................................................................8
Blog Software.................................................................................................................................8
Server Models................................................................................................................................8
Clients............................................................................................................................................8
Features of Blogging Clients..............................................................................................................9
Post and comment management..................................................................................................9
Other Features...............................................................................................................................9
User Hosted Platforms.....................................................................................................................10
Software packages installed by weblog authors to run on their own servers....................................10
14 ELECTRONIC COMMERCE

Free and open source software...................................................................................................10

Developer-Hosted Platforms.......................................................................................................10
HOW TO CREATE AN EFFECTIVE BLOG.............................................................................................11
Step 1: Choose free blogging software........................................................................................11
Step 2: Register for an account and create your blog..................................................................12
Step 3: Select Your Domain, Theme and Other Options..............................................................12
Step 4: Start blogging...................................................................................................................12