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The blogosphere is made up of all
blog A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in Reverse ...
s and their interconnections. The term implies that blogs exist together as a connected
community A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, t ...
(or as a collection of connected communities) or as a
social networking service A social networking service or SNS (sometimes called a social networking site) is an online platform which people use to build social networks or social relationships with other people who share similar personal or career content, interests, ac ...
in which everyday authors can publish their opinions.


History

The term was coined on September 10, 1999 by Brad L. Graham, as a joke. It was re-coined in 2002 by William Quick, and was quickly adopted and propagated by the
warblog A warblog or milblog is a weblog devoted mostly or wholly to covering news events concerning an ongoing war. Sometimes the use of the term "warblog" implies that the blog concerned has a pro-war slant. The term "milblog" implies that the author ...
community. The term resembles the older word ''logosphere'' (from Greek ''logos'' meaning ''word'', and ''sphere'', interpreted as ''world''), "the world of words", the universe of discourse. Despite the term's humorous intent, CNN, the BBC, and
National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other n ...
's programs ''
Morning Edition ''Morning Edition'' is an American radio news program produced and distributed by NPR. It airs weekday mornings (Monday through Friday) and runs for two hours, and many stations repeat one or both hours. The show feeds live from 5:00 to 9:00 A ...
'', '' Day To Day'', and ''
All Things Considered ''All Things Considered'' (''ATC'') is the flagship news program on the American network National Public Radio (NPR). It was the first news program on NPR, premiering on May 3, 1971. It is broadcast live on NPR affiliated stations in the United ...
'' have used it several times to discuss public opinion. A number of media outlets in recent years have started treating the blogosphere as a gauge of public opinion, and it has been cited in both academic and non-academic work as evidence of rising or falling resistance to
globalization Globalization, or globalisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is the process of interaction and integration among people, companies, and governments worldwide. The term ''globalization'' first appeared in the early 20t ...
,
voter fatigue In political science, voter fatigue is a cause of voter apathy which results from the electorates of representative democracies being required to vote too often. Voter fatigue and voter apathy should be distinguished from what arises when vot ...
, and many other phenomena, and also in reference to identifying influential bloggers and "familiar strangers" in the blogosphere.


Proliferation

In 1999, Pyra Labs opened blogging to the masses by simplifying the process of creating and maintaining personal web spaces. Prior to the creation of Pyra's " Blogger", the number of blogs in existence was thought to be less than one hundred. Blogger led to the birth of the wider blogosphere.Joust, K. & Hipolit, M. (2006). Blog explosion. CQ Researcher, 16(22), 505-528. In 2005, a Gallup poll showed that a third of Internet users read blogs at least on occasion, and in May 2006, a study showed that there were over forty-two million bloggers contributing to the blogosphere. With less than 1 million blogs in existence at the start of 2003, the number of blogs had doubled in size every six months through 2006. In 2011, it was estimated that there were more than 158 million blogs, with more than 1 million new posts being produced by the blogosphere each day.


Revenue

In a 2010 Technorati study, 36% of bloggers reported some sort of income from their blogs, most often in the form of ad revenue.Sobel, J. (2010). State of the blogosphere.Retrieved October 3, 2011, from http://technorati.com/blogging/article/state-of-the-blogosphere-2010-introduction/ This shows a steady increase from their 2009 report, in which 28% of the blogging world reported their blog as a source of income, with the mean annual income from advertisements at $42,548. Other common sources of blog-related income are paid speaking engagements and paid postings. Paid postings may be subject to rules on clearly disclosing commercial advertisements as such (regulated by, for example, the
Federal Trade Commission The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is an independent agency of the United States government whose principal mission is the enforcement of civil (non-criminal) antitrust law and the promotion of consumer protection. The FTC shares jurisdiction o ...
in the US and the Advertising Standards Authority in the UK).


As a social network

Sites such as Technorati,
BlogPulse BlogPulse was a search engine and analytic system for blogs. It uses automated processes to monitor the daily activity on blogs and generates trend information. It was initially created by IntelliSeek, and was later acquired by the Nielsen Company, ...
, and Tailrank track the interconnections between bloggers. Taking advantage of
hypertext Hypertext is text displayed on a computer display or other electronic devices with references ( hyperlinks) to other text that the reader can immediately access. Hypertext documents are interconnected by hyperlinks, which are typically ...
links which act as markers for the subjects the bloggers are discussing, these sites can follow a piece of conversation as it moves from blog to blog. These also can help information researchers study how fast a
meme A meme ( ) is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme. A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ...
spreads through the blogosphere, to determine which sites are the most important for gaining early recognition. Sites also exist to track specific blogospheres, such as those related by a certain genre, culture, subject matter, or geopolitical location.


Mapping

In 2007, following six weeks of observation, social media expert Matthew Hurst mapped the blogosphere, generating the plot to the left based on the interconnections between blogs. The most densely populated areas represent the most active portions of the blogosphere. White dots represent individual blogs. They are sized according to the number of links surrounding that particular blog. Links are plotted in both green and blue, with green representing one-way links and blue representing reciprocal links.Ornes, S. (2007). Welcome to the blogosphere. DISCOVER Magazine. Retrieved October 3, 2011, from http://discovermagazine.com/2007/may/map-welcome-to-the-blogosphere ''DISCOVER Magazine'' described six major 'hot spots' of the blogosphere. While points 1 and 2 represent influential individual blogs, point 3 is the perfect example of "blogging island", where individual blogs are highly connected within a sub-community but lack many connections to the larger blogosphere. Point 4 describes a sociopolitical blogging niche, in which links demonstrate the constant dialogue between bloggers who write about the same subject of interest. Point 5 is an isolated sub-community of blogs dedicated to the world of pornography. Lastly, point 6 represents a collection of sports' lovers who largely segregate themselves but still manage to link back to the higher traffic blogs toward the center of the blogosphere.


Merging with other social networks

Over time, the blogosphere developed as its own network of interconnections. In this time, bloggers began to engage in other online communities, specifically social networking sites, melding the two realms of social media together. According to Technorati's 2010 "State of the Blogosphere" report, 78% of bloggers were using the microblogging service Twitter, with much larger percentages of individuals who blogged as a part-time job (88%) or full-time for a specific company (88%). Almost half of all bloggers surveyed used Twitter to interact with the readers of their blog, while 72% of bloggers used it for blog promotion. For bloggers whose blog was their business (self-employed), 63% used Twitter to market their business. Additionally, according to the report, almost 9 out of 10 (87%) bloggers were using Facebook.


Blogging niches

Within the blogosphere, several sub-communities have developed. These communities are largely divided by genre. Blogs are often identified by a specific genre or topic, such as travel or politics. *
News blogs News is information about current events. This may be provided through many different media: word of mouth, printing, postal systems, broadcasting, electronic communication, or through the testimony of observers and witnesses to events. New ...
have become popular, and have created competition for traditional print newspaper and news magazines. The
Huffington Post ''HuffPost'' (formerly ''The Huffington Post'' until 2017 and sometimes abbreviated ''HuffPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and ...
was ranked the most powerful blog in the world by ''
The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the ...
'' in 2008, and has come to dominate current event reporting. *
Political blog A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order s ...
s are often tied to a large media or news corporation, such as "The Caucus" (affiliated with ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
''), "CNN Political Ticker", and the ''
National Review ''National Review'' is an American conservative editorial magazine, focusing on news and commentary pieces on political, social, and cultural affairs. The magazine was founded by the author William F. Buckley Jr. in 1955. Its editor-in-chief ...
''s "The Corner". *Gossip blogs have grown extensively with the development of the blogosphere. One of the first influential gossip bloggers was
Perez Hilton Mario Armando Lavandeira Jr. (born March 23, 1978), known professionally as Perez Hilton, is an American blogger, columnist, and media personality. His blog is known for posts covering gossip items about celebrities, and for posting tabloid ph ...
, a celebrity and entertainment media gossip blogger. His blog posts tabloid photographs of celebrities, accompanied by captions and comments. Web traffic to the often controversial and raunchy Perez Hilton site increased significantly in 2005, prompting similar gossip blogs, such as TMZ.com to gain popularity.The designation itself is mentioned in, among others, Gray, Tyler (2006-09-28). "Pop goes Perez: How a pudgy Miami poseur became gossip's new queen". Radar Online. Retrieved 2007-02-1 * Food blogs allow chefs to share recipes, cooking techniques, and
food porn Food porn (or foodporn) is a glamourized visual presentation of cooking or eating in advertisements, infomercials, blogs, cooking shows, and other visual media. Its origins come from a restaurant review e-commerce platform called Foodporn. Food ...
. Food blogs such as 101 Cookbooks, Smitten Kitchen, and Simply Recipes can serve as online cookbooks for followers and often contain restaurant critiques, product reviews, and step-by-step photography for recipes. * Fashion blogs have also become large sub-communities following the growth of the blogosphere. blogs like Racked, The Cut, and Fashionista give readers an eye into the fashion industry. Besides fashion news blogs, street style blogs have also become popular. Such bloggers include Scott Schuman (The Sartorialist), Tommy Ton (Jak and Jil), Jane Aldridge (Sea of Shoes), Bryan Grey-Yambao (Bryanboy), and Tavi Gevinson (Style Rookie). They are able to earn considerable livings through advertising, selling their photos and even providing their services as photographers, stylists, and guest designers. * Health blogs cover health topics, events and/or related content of the health industry and the general community. A health blog can cover diverse health related concerns such as nutrition and diet, fitness, weight control, diseases, disease management, societal trends affecting health, analysis about health, business of health and health research. * Scientific blogs cover different scientific and mathematical topics. Some of these are written by leading researchers, others by interested laymen. These are often free to access and thus provide an alternative to pay walled scientific literature. *Genealogy blogs cover a variety of topics related to
genealogy Genealogy () is the study of families, family history, and the tracing of their lineages. Genealogists use oral interviews, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kin ...
and family history, including the genealogy industry, genealogy software and technology, as well as educational "how to" posts related to specific research areas. *Philosophy blogs both in
analytic philosophy Analytic philosophy is a branch and tradition of philosophy using analysis, popular in the Western world and particularly the Anglosphere, which began around the turn of the 20th century in the contemporary era in the United Kingdom, United ...
and
Continental philosophy Continental philosophy is a term used to describe some philosophers and philosophical traditions that do not fall under the umbrella of analytic philosophy. However, there is no academic consensus on the definition of continental philosophy. Pri ...
are a significant part of the blogosphere, often covering metaphysics, ethics and philosophy of language.


See also

*
Bloggernacle The Mormon blogosphere (often referred to as the Bloggernacle) is a segment of the blogosphere focused on issues related to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). The term "Bloggernacle" was coined by individuals within the L ...
*
Customer engagement Customer engagement is an interaction between an external consumer/customer (either B2C or B2B) and an organization (company or brand) through various online or offline channels. According to Hollebeek, Srivastava and Chen's (2019, p. 166) S-D l ...
*
Global Voices Online Global Voices is an international community of writers, bloggers and digital activists that aim to translate and report on what is being said in citizen media worldwide. It is a non-profit project started at the Berkman Center for Internet and ...
* Group blogging * J-blogosphere


References


External links

* Technorati'
State of the Blogosphere
{{Blog topics Internet terminology Blogs