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March 18, 2008

The concept of Web 2.0 is often misunderstood. The phrase alone suggests an improvement. Advocates suggest that technologies such as weblogs, social bookmarking, wikis, podcasts, RSS, social networks, APIs, etc. imply a significant change in the way the web works. And in my opinion, it all began with blogging...

What is a blog? Wikipedia tells us that:

A blog (a portmanteau of web log) is a website where entries are commonly displayed in reverse chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (artlog), photographs (photoblog), sketchblog, videos (vlog), music (MP3 blog), audio (podcasting) are part of a wider network of social media. Micro-blogging is another type of blogging which consists of blogs with very short posts. As of December 2007, blog search engine Technorati was tracking more than 112 million blogs.

The idea of networks, communities, user-generated content, syndication, and more have all led to the Web becoming a platform—one where collective intelligence and the network effect reign.

Posted by Andrew Paulson, NSBA Staff, at 9:55 AM | About this Weblog

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