Online diaries, aka blogging, are about to be catapulted into the mainstream thanks to Google buying Pyra, the web's biggest blog-making software.
Blogging, taken from the combination of "web log", has grown from a few private websites into one of the most popular online activities.
Google, the web's biggest search engine, will now be able to tap into the 200,000 or so blogs running on Blogger's platform, and its 1.1 million users.
It's also bound to encourage millions of users to start their own blogs and have their voices heard on the net.
They're free to start and don't require you to be too computer savvy - you just need to fill in a few details (on
www.blogger.com) and press go. They'll even host your site for free for you.
What to put on it? Your views on war, news, kittens, knitting, anything - so long as it is subjective and contains links to other blogs, websites you like and interesting articles. People love reading other people's passionate views and, if you add a "comments" box, you'll soon be running your own online discussion forum.
The Google deal should see blogging become 2003's biggest net craze and put even more pressure on big corporate websites struggling to survive.
Increased numbers of blogs will change the dynamic of online news and info, as members of the net community end up spending all their time visiting each other's websites, rather than the corporate news sites.
To describe this deal as a watershed moment for the fledgling medium is a bit of an understatement, it is the making of a whole new "power to the people" medium. You just watch, this time next year we'll all be blogging.
Find good examples of blogs at
www.gizmodo.com,
www.nthellworld.com and
www.mbites.co.uk
Topic: Blogging (Read 2098 times)