A blog is a lot like a journal except it is generally intended to be read by others. The topics for blogs vary greatly; some being about day to day activities and others taking a more corporate or political slant. There is no defined or widely accepted format and so blogs range from one liners that the author adds every few hours to relatively long, well thought out arguments for or against a topic of interest.
Usually, users that are interested in a particular blog can subscribe to the blog and receive updates automatically through the use of an RSS feed aggregator (also known as a news aggregator). Unlike mailing lists, you do not need to provide an e-mail address and if nothing else, blog subscriptions protect your e-mail address from spam.
Typically, a blog contains posts that are more often than not presented in reverse chronological order. A blog, at a minimum, consists of the following components:
- Title of the post.
- Body area for the main content.
- Comment area where readers can discuss the posting.
- Category to help with grouping posts.
- Permanent link a.k.a. permalink which is the URL of the full post.
- Post or publishing date.
- Web Log