A blog is a term for a type of website. A blog is kept by a person or group and is often time devoted to a subject matter like politics but some are just the authors thoughts on what ever. Some are basically journals kept on line but most of the blogs you hear about in the news deal with polotics and there are probably millions of them.

Blog is short for "Web log" or "weblog." What is significant about "blogging" is that it is faster/easier for the "owner" to update versus the sandard page format. There are two or three software formats for this. Some of the issues surrounding blogs is, as 5280 mentioned, the political aspect. A lot of bloggers are aspiring or wannabe journalists. There is concern from the mainstream media (read competition) that bloggers are not journalists in the true sense of the word since they don't have editors and the like to keep them in check and make sure their stories are credible (You know, like CBS does such a good job of). The proponents of weblogging state that because anybody can start a weblog, it removes the potential pressure to conform to a corporate bias in order to get/keep a job.

HTH,

Brett

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"Du or Du not-there is no Tri" - Yoda

Thanks. Can't anyone just start a website and post their views too? Or is it just easier to do it in the form of a Blog?

Hugh (or is that Mr Jass)
This is really one for the Lavender room, but anyway the difference is that people actually read websites...!

Meanwhile, my favourite blog name:

www.isdickcheneydeadyet.com

<<This is really one for the Lavender room, >>

HA! Look at the number of OT posts showing up on the main forum this week.

Anybody know of a good backpack for my dog?

Brett

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"Du or Du not-there is no Tri" - Yoda

Funny I just read a book about Blogs, so I'll throw in my $0.02.

The author is Hugh Hewitt the title is BLOG and it should take you about 1-3 days to read. This will give you a very good understanding of Blogging (and the “blogosphere”), but more importantly its impact on “new” media. In essence instead of media (newspapers, television, etc) coming to the public everyday with what they consider "news worthy", the public drives stories by Blogging or commenting on them, and analyzing their validity by cross referencing other documents on the web.

I thought Blogs were kind of stupid until Bloggers exposed that CBS story (bloggers are the ones that analyzed fraudulent memos and recreated them in MS word) and made the news division at CBS a shambles. An example in the book of a triathlon blog is http://www.trigeekdreams.com. I think the book is worth the read.

Note: Hewitt is a conservative but I wouldn’t consider the book conservative in the sense that he is trying to sway anyone to any position. Really it espouses his position on blogs, which in his words; "blogs are the next wave in the information revolution, as important to the dissemination of information as the printing press was to the Reformation. "