What Is A Blog? – Definition, Characteristics, And More

A blog is a trendy type of website where, like a magazine. Its author (often an individual) periodically publishes content (called “posts,” “entries,” or “articles”) to which readers can add comments.

If you wanted to have a quick definition of a blog, the report above sums up all the essentials. But you should know that blogging is more than that.

The concept first appeared in the mid-1990s as a personal blog that the authors practically used as a personal diary exposed to the public on the Internet.

Things have evolved a lot since then. It has been discovered, for example, that they serve as potent digital marketing tools, so much so that they have led to a revolution in the professional world by democratizing access to business on the Internet.

What Is A Blog For, What Is It Done For, And What Characterizes It?

Have I captured your interest with this example? Let’s talk now about the aspects that make a blog a blog, what it is for, and how it can go to a point like our case.

What Is The Difference Between A Web Page and A Blog?

Maximum people wonder what the difference is between a blog and a website.

You should be clear that a blog is not something different; it is just another web page, but with some specific characteristics, functionalities that make it a blog itself.

These functionalities are implemented in web applications or platforms (software that is installed on a web server) and cloud services. Such as Blogger or WordPress that, thanks to this, make blog creation relatively fast and straightforward.

Besides, the most important, Blogger and WordPress, are free, a fundamental reason for these platforms’ tremendous success. Based on WordPress alone (the leader), there are at least 25 million websites on record at this time.

Besides, these platforms are not used exclusively to create blogs, and they are used for practically any website of low or medium complexity. So much so that there are even big brands like Sony or Walt Disney whose websites are based on WordPress.

Well, what is it then that makes a blog a blog? Let’s see it:

Periodical Publication

Blogs publish content regularly, similar to a traditional magazine that publishes new issues every X time. Blogs that value themselves try to be rigorous with this by posting with a fixed periodicity of, typically, one or several times a week.

The blogging platforms include feed functionality that allows feed readers. Such as Feedly to easily keep up-to-date with all the blogs they follow at a glance.

Interaction With Readers And Community

Blogs were one of the first websites, if not the first, that, through comments, introduced the possibility of interacting directly with the author and other readers.

It produced a feeling of closeness between them and a previously unknown experience for readers that have been very successful and has inspired web 2.0. It was the basis for developing ideas based on that concept, such as social media.

On the other hand, I forged the web community concept, a group of people who follow the blog in question, forming the community of followers with a group identity articulated around the common interests reflected in the blog’s theme.

Today these types of communities form in the same way around YouTube channels or “influencers” on social networks.