publishing revolution: blogs

So what are blogs all about?
My copy of Microsoft Encarta says there is “nothing new” about blogs. They are right. Blogs are ‘just’ more web pages on the internet.

If blogs are “nothing new” why should we be excited about them?
Because – for the first time – “tools to automate the maintenance of such sites made them accessible to a much larger population,” according to the publicly editable enyclopedia, wikipedia.

What existing skills?
If you know how to use email, you can blog.

Is it that simple?
Sure, there is a bit of stuffing around in the set up stage but not much more than signing up for a Yahoo or Hotmail account. No HTML or techie stuff needed.

Hmmm – what do mainstream media think of blogs?
Try the Guardian newsaper’s latest story on the blog-based publishing revolution for an indication of how quickly this is taking off and why it reports one site as saying a blog is created “every second.”