Before you learn "How to Blog" You need to first know what to know the blog. The most common definition of a blog (or weblog) is simply an online diary or journal of entries. They typically follow some chronology, though most often they are listed with the most recent entry at the top. A wider interpretation of blogs is simply that they are websites where entries are made. Whatever you choose as your precise definition, there is no question that they are a driving force on the Internet today, and one of the primary forms of communication available. In fact, as of September 2007, Technorati, a blog search engine, was tracking more than 106 million blogs!

The simple, online diary is something that has been at the heart of blogs and is the most natural for people starting out in blogging. As people spend so much more of their day on computers, it has been a natural extension of their communications with the outside world. And so we find many of them simply relating their day-to-day experiences, entry by entry, into a personal blog. Some people will include samples of their creative thinking, poems, stories, or pictures. Many will build in a feedback mechanism so that visitors can comment on the content of the blog.

There is little expectation that only one's friends will visit one's blog, and so the security issue is certainly at play here. And that is why a question that is commonly asked is: Why would someone expose their life like this? The superficial answer may simply be that it is a fad and they are doing what everyone else is doing and some, especially in the arts, are looking to produce discussion of their work. The real answer likely lies deeper. The Internet Age has allowed people to conduct much of their lives without leaving their homes. This has left a gaping hole where interpersonal discussion used to take place. Blogs are one way to compensate; they provide the means for friends to share the significant events, thoughts and ideas of their lives with each other. As one friend logs their day, another friend might be looking at the blog to find out how someone's day went. Ultimately, the simple need for camaraderie and community explain much of the purpose for blogs.

Beyond simple diaries, however, blogs can also be anything that is entry-driven. Users are drawn to view blogs with the expectation of new or updated information on a particular subject, person, or product. Thus, blogs run the whole spectrum of uses that other information tools do as marketing aids, education facilitators, brainstorming mediators, rallying points, etc. Like newsletters, blogs exist to inform, educate, discuss, encourage, and even excite.

The internet is a mass of information, much like a library is a mass of information. Bloggers are comparable to the librarians, whose job it is to help people locate the books they want. The role of the bloggers is to sift through the mass of internet information to help people find the information they want.

Whether blogging or reading blogs, people will always drawn together by the need to engage with other people. In an age where private Internet access has allowed many the luxury of remaining in their homes to live their lives in a virtual world blogs are fast becoming virtual neighborhoods.