A History of Blogs

*Disclaimer* 

In the spirit of blogging I have decided that I MUST insert every thought that passes through my head as it occurs, regardless of the value of the content to the topic.

So, the teacher gives the class an assignment like any other and I approach it with relative apathy (sadly, like any other) until I realize that it is somewhat unique, as far as assignments go.
I have been told to write a blog.  In all honesty I have never truly held the remotest interest in blogging whatsoever, but I feel as though this is a prime opportunity for me to expand my horizons.  Thus, I am left to decide how to begin a blog about ... well, blogs.
What better place to start than at the beginning?

Progression of the Blog
Blogs began as an online diary sort of thing in the early 1990s; people recorded their day, including details ranging from how the new puppy peed on the carpet to the boyfriend who doesn’t put the toilet seat down, etc.  Nothing that couldn’t be done in a paper journal, but hey, we’re on the computer more and more as it is; we might as well get our money’s worth out of the internet service we already pay for.

By about 2000, the blog had grown exponentially in popularity, and today anyone can write a blog about whatever they want. They range from personal diaries to intense politically themed centers of discussion.
Regardless of the purpose of a blog, one can certainly manage to enjoy them (and if not, then perhaps you can compose your blog about how much you deplore the idea of blogging and the “miserable” lives of bloggers, etc.).
*RANDOM TANGENT* 
Someone ought to devise a clear method of inserting sarcasm into certain forms of text, with some sort of undisputed punctuation.  My life would then be complete. (Am I being sarcastic??? Exactly.)

Types of Blogs
There exists in the vast expanses of the internet a wide range of blogs, and often finding the one you want to read can be somewhat of an ordeal. Thus, I have taken it upon myself to distinguish the different variations for you. The omnipotent Wikipedia recognizes several types of blogs, which I will now attempt to summarize as accurately as possible (of course with some of my own personal opinion peppered in for rhetorical purposes).

·      Personal Blogs – epitomized by such social networking sites as Twitter, they tend to write incessantly of the minor details of life, often posted solely for personal entertainment with the cleverness of one’s own words.  Truly sentimental ones that contain any value almost never rise to fame because the ones composed by egotistical celebrities overshadow the homegrown, quality ones.

·      Corporate and Organizational Blogs – blogs created by companies that are desperate to be the first of their competition to reach their customers in the most obscure ways possible.  They often entice customers to come to their blog by offering some form of compensation for visiting, which I personally have never heard of being useful.  (If you’ve ever visited a blog-type site that claimed to offer some type of coupon sort of deal, and you were successful in redeeming your minor prize, I shall alert the media.)

·      Genre Blogs – these blogs focus on one specific topic, ranging from music to art, politics to travel, badly annotated pictures of cats to badly animated pictures of dogs, etc.  I am almost certain that there exists a blog for nearly every topic our meager human minds could imagine, and if there is not one for the topic of your choosing, one can certainly endeavor themselves into creating one. For instance, no one has established a blog on frozen peas, and, if you so wish, feel free to invalidate this statement by creating a blog dedicated to frozen peas.

·      Media Type Blog – this category includes Vlogs (video logs), linklogs (blogs consisting of links to other sites), photoblogs (picture logs), and the ever-popular Tumblr. These blogs are perfect for those of us who are far too lazy to write and/or too untalented to compose or create anything of worth. BUT, they do know what is in good taste, and can identify and relay quality information to others.

This is not to limit the freedom with which one can create a blog, but rather to attempt to categorize a majority of the existing ones.  Again, the range of blogs on the Internet are vast, many are made just for fun, and others with more serious and professional undertones.

My Blog
So, if I were to write a blog, what would it be about? Well, using this as a dry run, I can honestly say there is no possible way to narrow down all of the possibilities.  After intensively researching many blogs (a.k.a. mindlessly surfing the web for hours on end, potentially damaging my eyesight and as the only sign of remaining life, producing an occasional chuckle every ten or so minutes) I have concluded that I am not yet ready to tackle the business of blogging.
I will admit, I have certainly talked down blogs more than I have admitted to their intrinsic value.

However, as I delved into this new world of writing, I have developed a much greater appreciation for blogging as a whole. Of course there still exists an indeterminable number of people that could not take any activity less seriously, producing only pure garbage that the global community will forever shun and be embarrassed about, but that is not to say that there is nothing out there worth reading. In fact there is much out there worth reading.
And so I encourage you to read and maybe even follow a blog if you haven’t already. Perhaps you’ll StumbleUpon something you enjoy after all.

Thoughts on my "blog" please comment or e-mail me at jacob.martin@studentmail.fcps.edu
Compliments preferred, criticism grudgingly accepted :)