Blogging

History of Blogging

  • Usenet is born

    Usenet is born as a decentralized network of discussion boards.
  • mod.ber is started

    The mod.ber newsgroup is started on Usenet. It was started as a place for its founder, Brian Redman, and his friends to post interesting things they discovered online and offline. While it was not called a Blog, it had many characteristics of modern blogs. It ceased operation after 8 months.
  • Listserv begins operation

    Listserv is born. Listserv is an email discussion group.
  • First proposal for creating the World Wide Web.

    Tim Berners-Lee writes his proposal for creating what would become the World Wide Web titled, "WorldWideWeb: Proposal for a Hypertext Project".
  • Tim Berners-Lee publishes the first Web Page

    Tim Berners-Lee publishes the first web page. Click here to see it.
  • John Carmack of id Software publishes his gaming updates

    John Carmack, programmer of Wolf 3D, Doom, & Quake, begins using the .plan text file on his internet account to keep gamers up to date on his projects. He continues to use the .plan updates until switching to his WWW blog on December 31, 2004.
  • Justin's Home Page is created

    Justin Hall creates what is considered the first Blog.
  • Scripting News is started

    Dave Winer starts Scripting News. His company, Userland releases blog and website publishing software...Frontier, Manila, and Radio Userland.
  • The term Weblog is used for the first time

    John Barger starts "Robot Wisdom Weblog". The term <strong>Weblog</strong> is soon coined as the term to use for online journals.
  • Open Diary is launched

    Open Diary becomes the first online blog system that allowed readers to comment on blog posts.
  • LiveJournal Blog Service is started

    Brad Fitzpatrick starts LiveJournal.
  • RSS 0.90 is released by Netscape

    Wanting to use an XML format to distribute news, stories and information, Netscape develops and releases the RSS framework.
  • Blogger.com is launched

    Pyra Labs creates and launches blogger.com. Blogger.com becomes the most popular blooging site and soon helps to mainstream blogging.
  • First MP3 file sent over RSS

    Dave Winer send a Grateful Dead song via a RSS enclosure. This was the predecessor of the first Podcast.
  • First known instance of a blogger fired for blogging about her job

    Heather Armstrong is fired after discussing her job on her blog.
  • Gizmodo is launched

    Gizmodo is launched. This is the beginning of the first big blog empire.
  • Google Adsense is launched

    Google launches its online advertising system designed to match ads to blog content.
  • RSS feed framework is specifically altered to support audio enclosures

    Dave Winer updates the RSS format to support audio enclosures. The RSS feed was originally released for NPR Talkshow Host Christopher Lydon's blog.
  • Weblogs, Inc. is started

    John Calacanis launches Weblogs, Inc. The company eventually grows to 85 high profile blog sites.
  • First Bloggercon Conference

    Dave Winer and others host the first Bloggercon Conference.
  • iPodder is released

    Adam Curry releases his script for moving MP3 files from Userland Radio's RSS feed to iTunes.
  • First Video Podcast

    Steve Garfield starts the first video podcast.
  • Podcasting is born

    Writer Ben Hammersley suggests three terms (Audioblogging, Podcasting, & GuerillaMedia) to use for the process of portable listening of audioblogs. Guess which term won out.
  • Apple forces the iPodder Project to shut down

    Apple sends a Cease and Desist letter to stop iSpider's iPodder Project.
  • Blog is the Word of the Year

    Merriam-Webster declares "Blog" as the Word of the Year.
  • A study reveals the popularity of Blogging

    A study is released revealing that 32 million Americans read blogs.
  • First blogger given credentials to the White House

    Garrett Graff becomes the first blogger to receive crendentials for the daily White House briefings.
  • John Calacanis makes $25 million

    John Calacanis sells his blog network to AOL for $25,000,000.
  • $100 million in blog ads

    Over $100 million in blog ads are sold over the year.
  • First Microblogging site is launched

    Twitter becomes the first Microblogging site.