A brief history of blogs

Believed to be the first blog, Justin Hall’s links.net began in 1994. For Hall, it was a chance to combine his love of the internet (then mostly a fledgling technology) and his other interests. His first draft had “links to HTML information, some stuff about [Hall’s] college, a photo of [him] and Oliver North, a sound clip of Jane’s Addiction’s lead singer saying ‘Well I’m on acid too, and I ain’t throwin’ shoes at you,’ and a list of [his] favorite web sites.”

The early adopters called their pages online journals or diaries, personal pages, and similar titles. In 1997, the term “weblog” was coined by Jorn Barger to describe these sites.

Early blogs were mostly for the technologically-savvy, requiring some knowledge of HTML and its requisite coding. Eventually, platforms begin cropping up, allowing ease-of-use for non-technical bloggers.

In 2003, both WordPress (where my site is hosted) and TypePad (who I’m familiar with for Seth Godin‘s using) were founded.

Over the past fifteen years, the prevalence and persistence of blogs has increased. Internet visibility is important not only to companies but also to individuals. Beyond the social media spectrum, where what you produce is comingled with everyone else’s content, your own website allows you the freedom to create what you will, with the security that, should you choose, it will only be your content seen.