It seems the whole world is blogging these days – the internet has millions of new blogs added to it every day covering every imaginable subject. The internet has been in existence for 40 years and although it seems much longer, blogging has been around for a little over 10 – something people find hard to believe when the see how widespread its popularity is.
Blogs, or web logs to give them their full name, began in the late 1990s as posts of personal information and opinions by individuals – thus the term "log" as in log book or record. Early blogs were personal blogs that were posted by people who had something to say or an opinion to express and found that the internet was the medium that gave them the widest reach.
Many people who would like to start blogging do not do so because they are not sure what they can write about and also what subjects will find readers. The answer to these questions is very easily found – they can write about anything that interests them or about which they feel strongly and as to who will read it the answer is simply that there is no opinion or interest group not present on the internet so anything posted is of interest to someone.
Many people use a personal blog to spread awareness about issues that they feel the public must be made aware of. Of course, one of the most popular uses of a personal blog is to spread awareness about a subject that is close to the heart of the blogger and which he feels is not as well known as it deserves to be. A personal blog can also be used by the author to expose conspiracies and lies to the light of day by evoking the public interest on aspects of important issues that he thinks are either being ignored or are being deliberately covered up to keep the public in ignorance.
A personal blog that is popular and has a regular and loyal bunch of readers can be a money maker for the blogger – it is possible to sell advertising space on the blog and this can be a source of regular income to the author; although since the money paid depends on the regular readership, a blog has to be very popular to earn a significant amount. Personal blogs are powerful tools for spreading news as can be seen from the fact that it was through blogs that the outside world came to know about the crack down on political protestors in Iran when foreign media was banned from the country. But all this is secondary – the personal log is first of all a way for a person to tell the world what he has to say.
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