![](media/image1.png){width="4.875in" height="8.020833333333334in"}

Technolust\
foxy new\
equipment

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| !                   | Armtop Computing:                              |
| [](media/image2.png |                                                |
| ){width="1.71875in" | tablet pc                                      |
| height="1.3         |                                                |
| 854166666666667in"} |                                                |
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A **tablet PC** is a mobile computer shaped in the form of a notebook or
a slate with the capabilities of being written on through the use of
digitizing tablet technology or a touchscreen. A user can use a stylus
and operate the computer without having to have a keyboard or mouse.

Tablet PCs that include a keyboard are called *convertibles* or
*hybrids*. Ones that are only a monitor with pen are called *slate;*
they can use external wireless or USB keyboards.

The most popular convertible tablet PCs are the Acer and Toshiba. The
most popular slates are the Motion Computing/Gateway Computers, Fujitsu,
and HP/Compaq.

Most tablet PCs run on the Windows XP Tablet PC Edition operating
system. Service Pack 2 includes Tablet PC Edition 2005 and is a free
upgrade. Version 2005 brought improved handwriting recognition, and
improved the Input Panel, allowing it to be used in almost every
application. During CES 2005, Microsoft showed off features planned for
a future upgrade. These included allowing users to ink directly on the
desktop, enabling handwritten notes with increased visibility.

Running Linux on tablet PCs is another option. For some Linux
distributions and some tablets this can be a tedious task unless buying
tablet with Linux pre-installed, as on the early Lycoris Desktop/LX
Tablet Edition. Linux initially lacked some basic tablet PC
applications, but with the advent of the EmperorLinux Raven X41 Tablet
with handwriting recognition, Linux Tablets have improved significantly.

Tablets such as the Hitachi VisionPlate are optionally shipped with
Linux and can readily be used as wireless X terminals, freeing them from
the requirements of actually running applications and, instead, allowing
all of the resources of the VisionPlate to be used to display the
graphic display portion of an application that is running somewhere on
the local or wide area network. This has allowed the tablet to be used
as a wireless graphics X terminal in vertical markets such as restaurant
point of sale.

A user can input text using the built-in handwriting recognition,
on-screen (virtual) keyboard, speech recognition, or a physical keyboard
(if available). Shorthand-like entry methods, which enable pen-driven
input at touch-typing speeds, are also available, including AlphaTap and
Shark.

Many tablet PCs use a Wacom digitizer, which delivers pen-position input
to the computer at a fast rate. Tablets with these digitizers project a
small magnetic field above the screen that interacts with electronics in
the tablet\'s stylus. The user therefore is able to rest their hand on
the screen without affecting the image or mouse pointer; only movement
of the stylus affects the mouse pointer. However, due to interference
from the electronics within a tablet PC, virtually every model of tablet
PC suffers from \"jitter.\" Jitter makes it impossible to accomplish two
tasks: slowly draw long, straight lines and more importantly, write
small characters on the screen. UC Logic and Finepoint make similar
digitizers.

Tablet PCs became available to the general public with the introduction
of Microsoft\'s Windows Tablet PC Edition in the fall of 2002. Before
then they were used in small markets in industry, medicine, and
government. Now they are used by students and many professionals.

Adapted from \"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tablet_PC\"

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| ![](media/im        | The PDA is Dead. Long Live the PDA             |
| age3.png){width="1. |                                                |
| 8465277777777778in" | blackberry                                     |
| height="2.          |                                                |
| 061111111111111in"} |                                                |
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**BlackBerry**

The **BlackBerry** is a handheld wireless device providing e-mail,
telephone, text messaging and web browsing and other wireless data
access.

**Name origin**

\"Take the name *BlackBerry*. Whimsical as it may seem, RIM settled on
it only after weeks of work by Lexicon Branding Inc., the Sausalito,
California--based firm that named Intel Corp.'s Pentium microprocessor
and Apple's PowerBook. One of the naming experts at Lexicon thought the
miniature buttons on RIM's product looked like the tiny seeds in a
strawberry, Lexicon founder David Placek says. A linguist at the firm
thought *straw* was too slow sounding. Someone else suggested
blackberry. RIM went for it.\" From a Bloomberg article by Anthony
Effinger (Google cache).

**Hardware**

The devices are manufactured by the Canadian company Research In Motion
(RIM) and are resold by cellular phone companies throughout the world.
They fit in the palm of the hand and are operated using a trackwheel and
buttons. The original BlackBerry device had a monochrome display, but
the newer models are colour.

While including the usual PDA applications (address book, calendar,
to-do lists, etc.) as well as telephone capabilities on newer models,
the BlackBerry is primarily known for its ability to send and receive
e-mail anywhere it has access to an appropriate wireless network, as
well as for its built-in keyboard optimized for \"thumbing\", or using
only your thumbs to type. System navigation is primarily accomplished by
the trackwheel (or \"thumbwheel\"), a scrolling wheel with a \"click\"
function, located on the right side of the device. Some models (such as
7510 and 7520) also incorporate a two-way radio.

Modern BlackBerry handhelds incorporate an ARM 7 or 9 processor, however
older BlackBerry 950 and 957 handhelds used Intel 80386 processors. They
recently announced that new devices will have the Intel XScale PXA9xx
cellular processor, code named \"Hermon\".

The devices are very popular with some businesses, where they are
primarily used to provide e-mail delivery to roaming employees. To fully
integrate the BlackBerry into a company, the installation of BlackBerry
Enterprise Server (BES) is required.

In November 2004, RIM announced that the number of subscribers to the
BlackBerry service had reached two million, having doubled within ten
months.

**Keyboard**

Most BlackBerry devices come with a full, albeit tiny, QWERTY keyboard,
using the \"Alt\" key to enter numbers and special characters. A
self-configurable \"Auto Text\" feature can be used for frequent words
or easier input of special characters like umlauts (point 13 at \[1\],
German). The new 7100 series models feature a reduced-key keyboard and
use SureType technology to allow each key to represent multiple letters,
numbers, and symbols.

**Operating system**

RIM provides a proprietary operating system (OS) for the BlackBerry,
which makes heavy use of the device\'s specialized input devices,
particularly the thumbwheel. The OS provides support for MIDP 1.0 and
WAP 1.2. Previous versions allowed wireless synchronization with
Microsoft Exchange Server\'s e-mail and calendar, as well as with Lotus
Domino\'s e-mail. The current OS 4 provides a subset of MIDP 2.0, and
allows complete wireless activation and synchronization with Exchange\'s
e-mail, calendar, tasks, notes and contacts, and adds support for Novell
GroupWise.

Third-party developers can write software using these APIs, and
proprietary BlackBerry APIs as well, but any application that makes use
of certain restricted functionality must be digitally signed so that it
can be associated to a developer account at RIM. This signing procedure
guarantees the authorship of an application, but does not guarantee the
quality or security of the code.

**Supporting software**

![](media/image4.jpeg){width="3.59375in" height="3.40625in"}BlackBerry
handheld integration into an organization\'s e-mail system is provided
through a software package called \"BlackBerry Enterprise Server\"
(BES). Versions of BES are available for Microsoft Exchange, Lotus
Domino and Novell GroupWise.

Individual users can often use e-mail services provided by the wireless
provider and therefore may not be required to install a BES server on
their local network, but organizations that have multiple wireless users
usually run BES on their own network.

BES can act as a sort of e-mail relay for corporate accounts so that
users always have access to their e-mail. The software monitors the
user\'s local \"inbox\", and when a new message comes in, it picks up
the message and passes it to RIM\'s Network Operations Center (NOC). The
messages are then relayed to the user\'s wireless provider, which in
turn delivers them to the user\'s BlackBerry device. This is called Push
procedure, where the mobile user doesn\'t have to synchronize the data
by hand. All new e-mails, contacts and calendar entries are pushed to
the BlackBerry device automatically. This also enables the mobile user
to access all data offline in areas without wireless service. As soon as
the user connects again, the BES sends the latest data. This way the
handheld is always up-to-date.

BES also provides handhelds with TCP/IP connectivity that is proxied
through a component called \"Mobile Data Service\" (MDS). This allows
for custom application development using data streams on BlackBerry
devices based on the Sun Microsystems J2ME platform.

In addition, BES provides security, in the form of 3DES or, more
recently, AES encryption of all data (both e-mail and MDS traffic) that
travels between the BlackBerry handheld and a BlackBerry Enterprise
Server.

The universal connectivity of the BES/MDS infrastructure is one of the
most valuable aspects of Research In Motion\'s product. An organization
can have devices on different carriers, and connected through different
cellular network protocols, all functioning in an integrated fashion.

Most providers offer flat monthly pricing for unlimited data between
BlackBerry units and BES, which also enhances the value of the MDS
component. In addition to receiving e-mail, organizations can make
intranets or custom internal applications with unmetered traffic.

With more recent versions of the BlackBerry platform, the MDS is no
longer a requirement for wireless data access. Beginning with OS 3.8 or
4.0, BlackBerry handhelds can access the Internet (i.e. TCP/IP access)
without an MDS - previously only e-mail and WAP access was possible
without a BES/MDS. The BES/MDS is still required for secure e-mail and
data access.

Certain BlackBerry devices from Nextel and Telus have always had the
ability to access the Internet without requiring a BES/MDS.

**Social usage**

Thanks to their gains in popularity, BlackBerry devices are also used in
social scenarios for setting up dates or movie viewing times with
friends and acquaintances. The ease of keying in and sending not only
e-mails, but mobile \"short messages\" (SMS) as well, is particularly
practical, e.g. to quickly answer a mail message to a sender with mobile
phone (but no BlackBerry \...)

![](media/image5.png){width="3.3805555555555555in"
height="7.491666666666666in"}

Web Gone Wild

wikis, rss, blogs, and social networking software

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| ![](media/image6    | Syndicate This:                                |
| .png){width="1.8in" |                                                |
| height="0.7in"}     | rss                                            |
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**RSS** is a family of XML file formats for web syndication used by
(amongst other things) news websites and weblogs. The abbreviation is
used to refer to the following standards:

1.  Rich Site Summary (RSS 0.91)

    RDF Site Summary (RSS 0.9 and 1.0)

    Really Simple Syndication (RSS 2.0)

The technology behind RSS allows internet users to subscribe to websites
that have provided RSS feeds; these are typically sites that change or
add content regularly. To use this technology, site owners create or
obtain specialized software (such as a content management system) which,
in the machine-readable XML format, presents new articles in a list,
giving a line or two of each article and a link to the full article or
post. Unlike subscriptions to pulp-based newspapers and magazines, RSS
subscriptions are free.

The RSS formats provide web content or summaries of web content together
with links to the full versions of the content, and other meta-data.
This information is delivered as an XML file called RSS feed, webfeed,
RSS stream, or RSS channel. In addition to facilitating syndication, RSS
allows a website\'s frequent readers to track updates on the site using
a news aggregator.

**Usage**

RSS is widely used by the weblog community to share the latest entries\'
headlines or their full text, and even attached multimedia files. (See
podcasting, broadcatching and MP3 blogs.) In mid 2000, use of RSS spread
to many major news organizations, including Reuters, CNN and the BBC,
until under various usage agreements, providers allow other websites to
incorporate their \"syndicated\" headline or headline-and-short-summary
feeds. RSS is now used for many purposes, including marketing,
bug-reports, or any other activity involving periodic updates or
publications.

![](media/image7.png){width="3.6145833333333335in"
height="3.8958333333333335in"}A program known as a feed reader or
aggregator can check RSS-enabled webpages on behalf of a user and
display any updated articles that it finds. It is now common to find RSS
feeds on major web sites, as well as many smaller ones.

Client-side readers and aggregators are typically constructed as
standalone programs or extensions to existing programs like web
browsers. Such programs are available for various operating systems.

Web-based feed readers and news aggregators require no software
installation and make the user\'s \"feeds\" available on any computer
with Web access. Some aggregators syndicate (combine) RSS feeds into new
feeds, e.g. take all football related items from several sports feeds
and provide a new football feed. There are also search engines for
content published via RSS feeds like Feedster, Blogdigger or Plazoo.

On web pages, RSS feeds are typically linked to with an orange rectangle
with the letters XML (![](media/image8.png){width="0.375in"
height="0.14583333333333334in"}) or RSS
(![](media/image9.png){width="0.375in" height="0.14583333333333334in"}).

**History**

Before RSS, several similar formats already existed for syndication, but
none achieved widespread popularity or are still in common use today, as
most were envisioned to work only with a single service. For example, in
1997 Microsoft created Channel Definition Format for the Active Channel
feature of Internet Explorer 4.0. Another was created by Dave Winer of
UserLand Software. He had designed his own XML syndication format for
use on his Scripting News weblog, which was also introduced in 1997.

RDF Site Summary, the first version of RSS, was created by Dan Libby of
Netscape in March 1999 for use on the My Netscape portal. This version
became known as RSS 0.9. In July 1999 Libby produced a prototype
tentatively named RSS 0.91 (RSS standing for Rich Site Summary), that
simplified the format and incorporated parts of Winer\'s scriptingNews
format. This they considered an interim measure, with Libby suggesting
an RSS 1.0-like format through the so-called Futures Document.

Soon afterwards, Netscape lost interest in RSS/XML, leaving the format
without an owner, just as it was becoming widely used. A working group
and mailing list, RSS-DEV, was set up by various users and XML world
notables to continue its development. At the same time, Winer
unilaterally posted a modified version of the RSS 0.91 specification to
the Userland website, since it was already in use in their products.
Since neither side had any official claim on the name or the format,
arguments raged whenever either side claimed RSS as its own, creating
what became known as the RSS fork.

The RSS-DEV group went on to produce RSS 1.0 in December 2000. Like RSS
0.9 (but not 0.91) this was based on the RDF specifications, but was
more modular, with many of the terms coming from standard metadata
vocabularies such as Dublin Core.

Nineteen days later, Winer released RSS 0.92, a minor and supposedly
compatible set of changes to RSS 0.91. In April 2002, he published a
draft of RSS 0.93 which was almost identical to 0.92. A draft RSS 0.94
surfaced in August, reverting the changes made in 0.93, and adding a
*type* attribute to the *description* element.

In September 2002, Winer released a final successor to RSS 0.92, known
as *RSS 2.0* and emphasizing \"Really Simple Syndication\" as the
meaning of the three-letter abbreviation. The RSS 2.0 spec allowed
people to add extension elements using XML namespaces. In 2003, Winer
and Userland Software assigned ownership of the RSS 2.0 specification to
his then workplace, Harvard\'s Berkman Center for the Internet &
Society.

Winer was criticized for unilaterally creating a new format and raising
the version number. In response, RSS 1.0 coauthor Aaron Swartz published
RSS 3.0, a non-XML textual format. The format was possibly intended as a
parody and only a few implementations were ever made.

In January 2005, Sean B. Palmer and Christopher Schmidt produced a
preliminary draft of RSS 1.1. It was intended as a bugfix for 1.0,
removing little-used features, simplifying the syntax and improving the
specification based on the more recent RDF specifications. As of July
2005, RSS 1.1 had amounted to little more than an academic exercise.

In August 2005, Jonathan Avidan launched his own project to create an
\"RSS 3\", though apparently without backing from anyone in the RSS
industry, and the project failed to take off. Sean B. Palmer and Morbus
Iff, claiming to be acting on behalf of Aaron Swartz, sent a
cease-and-desist notice for abuse of the RSS 3 name.

**Incompatibilities**

As noted above, there are several different versions of RSS, falling
into two major branches. The RDF, or RSS 1.\* branch includes the
following versions:

1.  RSS 0.90 was the original Netscape RSS version. This RSS was called
    *RDF Site Summary*, but was based on an early working draft of the
    RDF standard, and was not compatible with the final RDF
    Recommendation.

    RSS 1.0 and 1.1 are an open format by the \"RSS-DEV Working Group\",
    again standing for *RDF Site Summary*. RSS 1.0 is an RDF format like
    RSS 0.90, but not fully compatible with it, since 1.0 is based on
    the final RDF 1.0 Recommendation.

The RSS 2.\* branch (initially UserLand, now Harvard) includes the
following versions:

1.  RSS 0.91 is the simplified RSS version released by Netscape, and
    also the version number of the simplified version championed by Dave
    Winer from Userland Software. The Netscape version was now called
    *Rich Site Summary*, this was no longer an RDF format, but was
    relatively easy to use. It remains the most common RSS variant.

    RSS 0.92 through 0.94 are expansions of the RSS 0.91 format, which
    are mostly compatible with each other and with Winer\'s version of
    RSS 0.91, but are not compatible with RSS 0.90. In all Userland RSS
    0.9x specifications, RSS was no longer an acronym.

    RSS 2.0.1 has the internal version number 2.0. RSS 2.0.1 was
    proclaimed to be \"frozen\", but still updated shortly after release
    without changing the version number. RSS now stood for *Really
    Simple Syndication*. The major change in this version is an explicit
    extension mechanism using XML Namespaces.

For the most part, later versions in each branch are
backwards-compatible with earlier versions (aside from non-conformant
RDF syntax in 0.90), and both versions include properly-documented
extension mechanisms using XML Namespaces, either directly (in the 2.\*
branch) or through RDF (in the 1.\* branch). Most syndication software
supports both branches. Mark Pilgrim\'s article \"The Myth of RSS
Compatibility\" discusses RSS version compatibility in more detail.

The extension mechanisms make it possible for each branch to track
innovations in the other. For example, the RSS 2.\* branch was the first
to support enclosures, making it the current leading choice for
podcasting, and as of mid-2005 is the format supported for that use by
iTunes and other podcasting software; however, an enclosure extension is
now available for the RSS 1.\* branch, mod_enclosure. Likewise, the RSS
2.\* core specification does not support providing full-text in addition
to a synopsis, but the RSS 1.\* markup can be (and often is) used as an
extension. There are also several common outside extension packages
available, include a new proposal from Microsoft for use in Internet
Explorer 7.

The most serious compatibility problem is with HTML markup. Userland\'s
RSS reader \-- generally considered as the reference implementation \--
did not originally filter out HTML markup from feeds. As a result,
publishers began placing HTML markup into the titles and descriptions of
items in their RSS feeds. This behaviour has become widely expected of
readers, to the point of becoming a de facto standard, though there is
still some inconsistency in how software handles this markup,
particularly in titles. The RSS 2.0 specification was later updated to
include examples of entity-encoded HTML, however all prior plain text
usages remain valid.

**Atom**

In reaction to perceived deficiencies in both RSS branches (and because
RSS 2.0 is frozen with the intention that future work be done under a
different name), a third group started a new syndication specification,
Atom, in June 2003, and their work was later adopted by Internet
Engineering Task Force (IETF).

The relative benefits of Atom and the two RSS branches are currently a
subject of heated debate within the web syndication community.
Supporters claim that Atom improves on both RSS branches by relying more
heavily on standard XML features, by supporting autodiscovery, and by
specifying a payload container that can handle many different kinds of
content unambiguously. Opponents claim that Atom unnecessarily
introduces a third branch of syndication specifications, further
confusing the marketplace.

Adapted from \"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS\_%28file_format%29\"

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  ![](media/image10.png){width="1.1666666666666667in"   The Town Square:\
  height="1.5520833333333333in"}                        blogs

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**Blog**

A **weblog** or **blog** (derived from web + log) is a web-based
publication consisting primarily of periodic articles (normally, but not
always, in reverse chronological order). Although most early blogs were
manually updated, tools to automate the maintenance of such sites made
them accessible to a much larger population, and the use of some sort of
browser-based software is now a typical aspect of \"blogging\".

Blogs range in scope from individual diaries to arms of political
campaigns, media programs, and corporations. They range in scale from
the writings of one occasional author (known as a **blogger**), to the
collaboration of a large community of writers. Many weblogs enable
visitors to leave public comments, which can lead to a community of
readers centered around the blog; others are non-interactive. The
totality of weblogs or blog-related websites is often called the
blogosphere. When a large amount of activity, information and opinion
erupts around a particular subject or controversy in the blogosphere, it
is sometimes called a **blogstorm** or **blog swarm**.

The format of weblogs varies, from simple bullet lists of hyperlinks, to
article summaries or complete articles with user-provided comments and
ratings. Individual weblog entries are almost always date and
time-stamped (but this is not a pre-requisite for being a blog), with
the newest post at the top (or bottom) of the page, and reader comments
often appearing below it. Because incoming links to specific entries are
important to many weblogs, most have a way of archiving older entries
and generating a static address for them; this static link is referred
to as a permalink. The latest headlines, with hyperlinks and summaries,
are frequently offered in weblogs in the RSS or Atom XML format, to be
read with a feed reader.

The tools for editing, organizing, and publishing weblogs are variously
referred to as \"content management systems\", \"publishing platforms\",
\"weblog software\", and simply \"blogware\".

**Precursors**

1.  Electronic communities existed before internetworking, but generally
    had some quality to them. For example the AP wire was, in effect,
    similar to a large chat room where there were \"wire fights\" and
    electronic conversations. Another pre-digital electronic community,
    Amateur (or \"ham\") radio, allowed individuals who set up their own
    broadcast equipment to communicate with others directly. Ham radio
    also had logs called \"glogs\" that were personal diaries made using
    wearable computers in the early 1980s.

    Before blogging became popular, digital communities took many forms,
    including Usenet, email lists and bulletin boards. In the 1990s
    Internet forum software, such as WebX, created running conversations
    with threads. The term \"thread\", in reference to consecutive
    messages on one specific topic of discussion, comes from email lists
    and Usenet as well, and \"to post\" from electronic bulletin boards,
    borrowing usage directly from their corkboard predecessors. Many of
    the terms from weblogging were created in these earlier media. See
    \"Common terms\", below.

    Diarists kept journals on the Web: most called themselves online
    diarists, journalists, journallers, or journalers. A few called
    themselves escribitionists. The Open Pages webring contained members
    of the online-journal community. The first famous journaller was
    probably Justin Hall.

    Other forms of journals kept online also existed. A notable example
    was game programmer John Carmack\'s widely read journal, published
    via the finger protocol.

    Websites have \"What\'s New\" sections.

**Blogging begins**

Blogging combined the personal web page with tools to make linking to
other pages easier, specifically blogrolls and TrackBacks, as well as
comments and afterthoughts. This way, instead of a few people being in
control of threads on a forum, or anyone able to start threads on a
list, there was a moderating effect that was the personality of the
weblog\'s owner. Justin Hall, who began eleven years of personal
blogging in 1994 while a student at Swarthmore College, is generally
recognized as one of the earliest bloggers.

The term \"weblog\" may have been coined by Jorn Barger in December
1997. The shorter version, \"blog\", was coined by Peter Merholz, who,
in ![](media/image11.png){width="3.6458333333333335in"
height="2.75in"}April or May of 1999, broke the word *weblog* into the
phrase \"we blog\" in the sidebar of his weblog. This was interpreted as
a short form of the noun and also as a verb *to blog*, meaning \"to edit
one\'s weblog or a post to one\'s weblog\". The site Open Diary, while
not using the term *blog* until recently, launched in 1998, had over
2000 diaries by 1999, and near 400 000 as of September 2005. Blog usage
spread during 1999, with the word being further popularized by the
near-simultaneous arrival of the first hosted weblog tools: Evan
Williams and Meg Hourihan\'s company Pyra Labs launched Blogger (which
was purchased by Google in February 2003) and Paul Kedrosky\'s GrokSoup.
As of March 2003, the Oxford English Dictionary included the terms
*weblog*, *weblogging* and *weblogger* in their dictionary.

One of the pioneers of the tools that make blogging more than merely
websites that scroll is Dave Winer. One of his most important
contributions was the creation of servers which weblogs would ping to
show that they had been updated. Blog reading utilities use the
aggregated update data to show a user when their favorite blogs have new
posts.

**Blogging\'s rise to influence**

Among the first established political blogs with U.S.-wide audiences
were Andrew Sullivan\'s AndrewSullivan.com, Ron Gunzburger\'s
Politics1.com, Jerome Armstrong\'s MyDD.com, and Markos Moulitsas
Zúniga\'s DailyKos \-- all of which launched widely read blogs in
2001-02. The first blog-driven political controversy was probably the
fall of U.S. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, who had remarked, at a
party honoring U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond, that Thurmond\'s leadership
abilities may have made him a good President. Since Thurmond had spent
much of his early political career sympathetic to white supremacists,
Lott\'s statements were conveyed in the media to be racist. In the
aftermath, bloggers such as Josh Marshall strove to demonstrate that his
remarks were not an isolated misstatement, by finding evidence including
quotes from other previous speeches of Lott\'s which were taken to be
racist. Their efforts kept the story \"alive\" in the press until a
critical mass of disapproval forced Lott to resign his position as
Senate Majority Leader.

By this point blogging was enough of a phenomenon that how-to manuals
had begun to appear, primarily focusing on using the tools, or creating
content. But the importance of a blog as a way of building an electronic
community had also been written on, as had the potential for blogs as a
means of publicizing other projects. Established schools of journalism
began researching the blogging phenomenon, and noting the differences
between current practice of journalism and blogging.

Since 2003, weblogs have gained increasing notice and coverage for their
role in breaking, shaping, or spinning news stories. One of the most
significant events was the sudden emergence of an interest in the Iraq
war, which saw both left-wing and right-wing bloggers taking measured
and passionate points of view that did not reflect the traditional
left-right divide. The blogs which gathered news on Iraq, both left and
right, exploded in popularity, and *Forbes magazine* covered the
phenomenon. The use of blogs by established politicians and political
candidates---particularly Howard Dean and Wesley Clark---to express
opinions on the war and other issues of the day, cemented their role as
a news source. Meanwhile, the increasing number of experts who blogged,
such as Daniel Drezner and J. Bradford DeLong, gave blogs a built-in
source of in-depth analysis.

The Iraq war was the first \"blog war\" in another way: bloggers in
Baghdad gained wider readership, and one (Salam Pax) published a book of
his blog. Blogs also arose amongst soldiers serving in the Iraq war.
Such \"milblogs\" have given readers a new perspective on the realities
of war. Reading the thoughts of people who were \"on the spot\" provided
a supplement and perhaps a differing viewpoint to official news sources.
Blogs were often used to draw attention to obscure news sources, for
example posting links to the traffic cameras in Madrid as a huge
anti-terrorism demonstration filled the streets in the wake of the M11
attacks. Bloggers would often provide nearly instant commentary on
televised events, which became a secondary meaning of the word
\"blogging\", such as \"I am blogging Rice\'s testimony,\" i.e., \"I am
posting my reactions to Rice\'s testimony to my blog as I watch it.\"

By the end of 2003 top rated blogs Instapundit, Daily Kos, and Atrios
were receiving over 75,000 unique visitors per day. Much on the same
lines, personal blogging became a rage in US, Europe and lately in Asia
also. Soon after, Blogs came to be classified for their premium content.

**Blogging goes mainstream**

In 2004, the role of blogs became increasingly mainstream, as political
consultants, news services and candidates began using them as tools for
outreach and opinion formation. Even politicians not actively involved
in a campaign such as Tom Watson, a UK Labour Party MP, began to use
blogging as a means for creating a bond with constituents and creating a
channel for their ideas and opinions. Minnesota Public Radio broadcast a
program by Christopher Lydon and Matt Stoller called \"The Blogging of
the President\", which covered the transformation in politics that
blogging seemed to presage. The *Columbia Journalism Review* began
regular coverage of blogs and blogging. Anthologies of blog pieces began
to reach print, and blogging personalities began appearing on radio and
television. In the summer of that year both the Democratic and
Republican National Conventions credentialed bloggers, and blogs became
a standard part of the publicity arsenal, with mainstream programs, such
as Chris Matthews\' *Hardball*, forming their own blogs.
Merriam-Webster\'s Dictionary declared \"blog\" as the word of the year
in 2004. (Wikinews)

Blogs were some of the driving forces behind the alleged \"Rathergate\"
scandal involving Dan Rather of CBS and some memos used on the show *60
Minutes II*. Within 72 hours a coordinated group of bloggers had built a
case that they were likely forgeries. The evidence presented eventually
created such concern over the issue that CBS was forced to address the
situation and make an apology for their inadequate reporting techniques.
This is viewed by many bloggers as the advent of blogs\' acceptance by
the mass media as a source of news. It also showed how blogs could keep
the pressure on an established news source, forcing defenses and then a
retraction of the original story.

Blogging is also used now to break consumer complaints and
vulnerabilities of products, in the way that Usenet and email lists once
were. One such example is accusations about vulnerability of Kryptonite
2000 locks.

Bloggers have also moved over to other media. Duncan Black (a.k.a.
Atrios), Glenn Reynolds, Markos Moulitsas Zúniga (a.k.a. Kos), Ana Marie
Cox (a.k.a. Wonkette), and others have appeared on radio and/or
television. Hugh Hewitt is an example of a media personality who has
moved in the other direction, adding to his reach in \"old media\" by
being an influential blogger. Amateur blogs can also provide
well-written, quality blogs, although, you have to weed them out from
the run of the mill blogs.

In January 2005, *Fortune* magazine listed Peter Rojas, Xeni Jardin, Ben
Trott and Mena Trott, Jonathan Schwartz, Jason Goldman, Robert Scoble,
and Jason Calacanis as eight bloggers that business people \"could not
ignore.\"

**Blogging and culture**

Blogging however, was as much about technology as politics, and the
proliferation of tools to run blogs and the communities around them
connected blogging with the Open Source movement. Writers such as Larry
Lessig and David Weinberger used their blogs to promote not just
blogging, but more generally different social models. One of the running
discussions within journalism and blogging is what \"blogging\" means
for the way news \"happens\" and is covered. This leads to questions
over intellectual property and the role of the mass media in society.
Many bloggers differentiate themselves from the mainstream media, while
others are members of that media working through a different channel.

Many bloggers have large agendas, and see blogging as part of Open
Source Politics, or the ability of people to participate more directly
in politics, helping to frame the debate (See George Lakoff). Some
institutions see blogging as a means of \"getting around the filter\"
and pushing messages directly to the public.

**Social Impact**

The free speech imperative of the blog world has also had a deep social
impact. For example, a number of companies have clashed with bloggers,
firing a few of them (for example Heather Armstrong, Mark Jen or Jessica
Cutler).

Blogs have also been seen as repositories for information about the
state of mind of certain people: in some cases, they could provide
insight in the minds of people who committed suicide, people who
committed crimes, or people who were victims of a crime (in 2005, a
blogger named his murderer in the last entry on his blog).

Blogs have also had an influence on minority languages, bringing
together scattered speakers and learners; this is particularly the case
with Scottish Gaelic blogs, whose creators can be found as far away from
traditional Gaelic areas as Kazakhstan and Alaska. Blogs are also used
regularly by Welsh language activists. Minority language publishing has
traditionally been expensive, with a small readership, and blogs
effectively counteract this.

**Creating and publishing weblogs**

Since their introduction, a number of software packages have appeared to
allow people to create their own weblog. Blog hosting sites and Web
services to provide editing via the Web have proliferated. Common
examples include Blogger and LiveJournal.

Many more advanced bloggers prefer to generate their blogs by using
server-side web applications such as Nucleus CMS, Movable Type, bBlog,
WordPress, Drupal, b2evolution, boastMachine, Antville, Serendipity and
Textpattern to publish on their own website or a third party site, or to
host a group of blogs for a company or school. Such programs provide
greater flexibility and power, but require more knowledge. If they
provide a Web interface for editing, server-based systems make it easy
for travelers to create and edit text; many travelers like to produce
their travelblogs from Internet cafes while they travel around the
globe.

In addition, some people program their own blogs from scratch by using
PHP, CGI, ASP, Perl, ColdFusion or other server side software. While
these are much more difficult to create, they add a maximum potential
for creativity.

The phenomena of multi-blogging refers to individuals, businesses or
institutions that maintain multiple blogs simultaneously. If one runs a
single blog, technically they are a blogger; however if one creates,
maintains, and runs 2, 10, 50, 100 or more blogs, they are a
multi-blogger.

Two features which are common to blogging are \"blogrolls\" and
\"commenting\" or \"feedback.\"

A blogroll is a list of other blogs that are linked separately from any
article. This is one means by which a blogger creates a context for his
blog, by listing other blogs that are similar to his/her own, or blogs
the blogger thinks may be of relevance to users. It is also used as
measure of the number of citations a blog has, and is used to rank
\"blog authority\" in a manner similar to the way that Google uses hard
coded HTML linking to create \"page rank.\" Still another use of the
\"blogroll\" is reciprocal linking: bloggers agree to link to each
other, or link to another blog in hopes of getting a link in return.

Another central, and sometimes controversial, aspect of blogging is the
use of a feedback comment systems. A comment system allows users to post
their own comments on an article or \"thread.\" Some blogs do not have
comments, or have a closed commenting system which requires approval
from those running the blog. For other bloggers, including several very
prominent ones, comments are the crucial feature which distinguishes a
\"true\" blog from other kinds of blogs. Commenting can either be built
into the software, or added by using a service such as HaloScan. If a
blog has regular commenters, this is referred to as the blog\'s
*community*.

![](media/image12.png){width="5.433333333333334in" height="3.58125in"}

Tools such as Ecto and w.bloggar allow users to maintain their Web
hosted blog without the need to be online while composing or editing
posts. Enhancements to weblog technology continue to be developed, such
as the TrackBack feature introduced by Movable Type in 2002 and
subsequently adopted by other software companies to enable automatic
notification between websites of related content---such as a post on a
particular topic or one which responds to a post on another blog. Blog
has gone as far as implementing threaded trackbacks on comments, and
comments on trackbacks.

Blogs with features such as TrackBack are credited with complicating
search engine page ranking techniques. Integrating these into search
engines has proven to be a challenge, and has been used to deliberately
\"push\" page rankings. However, as one Google executive remarked, it is
the search engine\'s job to find the ways that a website represents a
\"vote\" for another website.

Web hosting companies and online publications also provide blog creation
tools, such as Salon, Tripod, and America Online.

**Types of weblogs**

**Personal**

Often, the word *blog* is used to describe an online diary or journal,
such as LiveJournal. The weblog format of an online diary makes it
possible for users without much experience to create, format, and post
entries with ease. People write their day-to-day experiences,
complaints, poems, prose, illicit thoughts and more, often allowing
others to contribute, fulfilling to a certain extent Tim Berners-Lee\'s
original view of the World Wide Web as a collaborative medium. In 2001,
mainstream awareness of online diaries began to increase dramatically.

Online diaries are integrated into the daily lives of many teenagers and
college students, with communications between friends playing out over
their blogs. Even fights may be posted in the diaries, with
not-so-veiled insults of each other easily readable by all their
friends, enemies, and complete strangers.

Personal opinions on experiences and hobbies are very common in the blog
world. Blogs have given the opportunity for people to express their
views to a mass audience. What may have been created to be used among a
few friends may be viewed by the internet-using public.

**FriendBlog**

A FriendBlog is a distributed networked journal on the web, composed of
short, frequently updated posts written by friends connected through
their similar interests. The author allows his FriendBlog to connect to
other FriendBlogs, belonging to friends and acquaintances. This creates
a \"chain\" of blogs.

**Topical**

![](media/image13.png){width="2.75in"
height="3.9479166666666665in"}Topical blogs focus on a specific niche,
often a technical one. An example is Google Blog, covering nothing but
news about Google. Another example is a soldier blog. Many blogs now
allow categories, which means a general blog can be reshuffled to become
a topical blog at the user\'s need. Topical blogs can also cover local
information.

**Health**

Blogs written as personal accounts of living with a specific health
issue, sharing information about the experience with others who have an
interest in that health issue and providing mutual support.

**Literary**

Given the obvious focus on words, it is not surprising that the Grub
Street tradition has continued on the internet with daily commentary
emanating from literary blogs (or litblog).

**Travel**

Famous explorers wrote their journeys down on paper. These days, modern
travelers have used blogs as a way to share their stories and photos,
even while they are traveling around the world.

**Research**

An increasing number of scholars and students blog their research notes,
combining the traditional scholar\'s private notebook with public
discussion. A related genre is the anonymous professor\'s blog, where
the various issues related to academia may be freely discussed.

**Sex**

You can see different sex blogs.

**Issues**

Issues blogs focus on activism, debate and current events. Daily KOS was
one of the first of these.

![](media/image14.png){width="2.78125in"
height="4.177083333333333in"}**News**

Many weblogs provide a news digest on a certain topic, with short
abstracts/summaries and links to interesting articles in the press.

**Political**

Another common kind of blog is a political blog. Often an individual
will link to articles from news web sites and post their own comments as
well. Many of these blogs comment on whatever interests the author. Some
of them are more specialized. One subspecies is the watch blog, a blog
which sets out to criticize what the author considers systematic errors
or bias in an online newspaper or news site---or perhaps even by a more
popular blogger.

Political blogs attracted attention because of their use by two
political candidates in 2003: Howard Dean and Wesley Clark. Both gained
political buzz on the Internet, and particularly among bloggers, before
they were taken seriously by the establishment media as candidates. Joe
Trippi, Dean\'s campaign manager, made the Internet a particular focus
of the campaign. Both candidates stumbled in the end, but were, at one
time or another, thought of as front runners for the Democratic
Nomination.

**Legal**

Blogs by lawyers or law students, or which discuss law and legal affairs
are often referred to as **blawgs**. By extension, the creator of such a
blog is a blawger, sometimes spelled blawgger (variant, rare).

The coining of the term blawg is generally attributed by blawgers to
Denise Howell of Bag and Baggage. See Jeff Rosen Gets All Mixed Up on
Blawgs, Blogging and Other Things by law blogger Dennis Kennedy
(criticizing Jeff Rosen for limiting the definition of blawg to
law-student blogs, and for failing to credit Denise).

Some blawgs are narrow and deal with a focused and/or technical area of
law.

Others, like the Volokh Conspiracy, deal with whatever topic the
blawgers wish to discuss.

**Media**

Some blogs serve as media watchdogs, reporting on falsehoods or
inconsistencies that are presented as facts in the mass media. Many
media blogs are focused exclusively on one newspaper or television
network.

**Religious**

Some blogs discuss religious topics. Religious blogs show the public\'s
points of view on various controversies both in religion and in
politics, economics, and life in general.

**Collaborative (also collective or group)**

Many weblogs are written by more than one person about a specific topic.
Collaborative weblogs can be open to everyone or limited to a group of
people. MetaFilter is an example of this type of weblog.

Slashdot, whose status as a blog has been debated, nevertheless has a
team of editors who approve and post links to technology news stories
throughout the day. Although Slashdot does not refer to itself as a
weblog, it shares some characteristics with weblogs.

Indymedia is an early (1999) example of a collaborative blog (although
the term blog wasn\'t in circulation yet) that was created to cover a
specific event (the WTO in Seattle), but has since spread around the
world.

A new form of blog represents a fusion of bloggers and traditional media
sources, allowing for topics covered in the traditional media, both
print and broadcast, to be fleshed out on the web. One prominent early
example of this sort of blog is the Dallas Morning News editor\'s blog.

**Eclectic**

From the Slashdot style blog comes eclectic blogs, which tend to focus
on specific niches. Such sites contain articles and stories from other
blogs and news sources on the web. There are often few articles actually
written by the authors of these blogs and instead the blogs themselves
tend to function as passageways for readers to find the actual source of
the article or original posting.

**Medical**

Some blogs are geared towards health and medicine. Medical blogs
generally fall into 2 categories. One type is a blog written by a health
care professional (such as a physician) about his or her life
experiences or other personal thoughts. A more recent but (so far)
unique trend is the blog that deals with actual patient cases. This
latter blog allows other physicians to submit cases to the blog.
Physicians can then offer comments or help with the case. Although not
yet tested, this format could theoretically increase patient care by
allowing the primary doctor to get feedback by other experts in the
field. As of yet, only a pulmonary roundtable exists, dealing with cases
related to the lung. It is unclear whether other medical fields will
arise in this new blog format.

**Partner (collaboration on multi-section documents)**

A partner blog site has a parallel web page or wiki page. Consider the
possible similarities between a blog site and a multi-section web
document. Blogs are generally thought of as a collection of periodic
postings organized by reverse date, each posting its own topic that does
not necessarily directly relate to the last. An essay or any large
document is also a collection of headings or sub-topics but organized by
sequence so that each sub-topic follows from the last to form a coherent
whole.

At the blog site, readers can use the comments link to discuss each
section. The author or authors of both sites having the passwords to
both would keep these two parallel, building on the feedback and
re-weaving it into the section of the web page essay and re-editing the
original blog posting. Revisions to the web page would come after
consensus formed in the posting at the blog site. The web page provides
a streamlined printout or reading without the distractions of the
comment and date data. The comments section of the blog provides a way
to track, remember and negotiate each heading section of the document.
The web page also provides more secure control of the developing
document than with a wiki, but slows down the evolution of the more
comprehensive document. A troika partnership of web, wiki and web page
is also viable. This has a wide range of uses for group editing of
policy statements, manuals, and grant and curriculum development.

**Educational**

There are many educational applications of blogs. Students can use
weblogs as records of their learning and teachers can use weblogs as
records of what they taught. For example, a teacher can blog a course,
recording day-by-day what was taught, including links to Internet
resources, and specifying what homework students are required to carry
out. This application has many advantages: (1) a student can quickly
catch-up if they miss a class; (2) the teacher can use the blog as a
course plan; and (3) the blog serves as an accurate summary of the
course that prospective students or new teachers can refer to.

There are other educational applications of blogs. Students can blog an
educational excursion, recording day-by-day (or hour by hour) where they
went, what they saw and what they learned - including photographs, audio
or video. The collaborative features of blogs can be used to permit
several students to contribute to the blog.

**Directory**

Directory weblogs are useful for web-surfers because they often collect
numerous web sites with interesting content in an easy to use and
constantly updated format. News-related weblogs can fall into this
category or the previous one (political blogs).

Don't confuse these with weblog directories, such as BlogWise.

These provide a more structured collection of weblog links, and will
often offer novel services and interesting views of the data within the
directory. These can be a good source of like-minded bloggers, or
bloggers situated near you.

**Forums/Other CMS systems**

Technically, a forum can sometimes be regarded as a weblog, but in
reality, a distinction is drawn between the two. Many types of existing
software, that pre-date blogging are in effect a type of \"blog\"
software, but the rise of blogging came about due to easy to use
blogging software for the masses. If for example, forum software is used
for the purposes of creating and publishing a online journal, or list,
then it would be regarded as a weblog. The distinction between a blog
and a forum is best decided by the creator of the said item, as they are
aware of its purpose.

**Business**

**Entrepreneurial**

A number of entrepreneurs are establishing blogs to promote their
businesses. Often business blogs act as a showcase for entrepreneurs to
provide a window into the behind-the-scenes goings on at their business,
presenting a more personal \"face\" to the public rather than a cold
corporate persona. In some cases the blog itself is the core of the
business bringing in revenue from advertising, selling products or
information.

**Corporate**

Increasingly, employees of corporations are posting official or
semi-official blogs about their work. The employers however, do not
always appreciate the endeavor. In January 2005 Joe Gordon was fired
from Waterstone\'s bookshop in Edinburgh, Scotland, because he referred
to his boss as an \"asshole in sandals.\" In 2004 Ellen Simonetti, a
Delta Air Lines flight attendant, was fired for posing in uniform on her
blog. David Corby was fired from Wells Fargo in 2002 after he complained
about a department policy forcing employees to wear american flag pins
to show support for the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks. He
described the event as fascist. Perhaps the most famous case of all
occurred when \"Troutgirl\" Joyce Park was fired from Friendster because
she discussed the rationale behind the website\'s technology conversion
from J2EE to PHP on her blog.

Other employers have reacted differently. For instance, when Power Line
bloggers were attacked by a *Star Tribune* columnist, one of the
bloggers\' employers came to his defense.

With the rise in popularity of blogs in 2004 senior management caught on
to the trend and by January 2005 several types of organizations,
including universities, had started using blogs to communicate with
their stakeholders. Some believe this corporate takeover of a tool that
was used primarily by Internet enthusiasts will lead to a decrease in
the popularity of the medium. Others believe that the use of blogs by
organizations will add new voices and vitality to the medium. At any
rate, there is little evidence that the growth rate of the blogosphere
has slowed. A prime example of senior management blogging is GM\'s
Fastlane blog \[9\], edited, among others, by GM vice chairman Bob Lutz.

In 2005 the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) published the guide
*How to Blog Safely (About Work or Anything Else)*.

**Busiplogs**

Business spam blogs (busiplogs), a term coined by LS Blogs, are blogs
that are specifically written in order to promote a product/service or
business. They have no value, or information of interest, to anyone
other than their owner. They are specifically designed to only promote
their business. Usually the quality of the blog is low, and often the
content is drawn from third party sites.

**Small Business**

Many small business people are far ahead of the corporate curve in using
blogs to promote their businesses.

**Advice**

Many weblogs provide expert advice.

Many small businesses are also using blogs to offer advice and better
connect with their clients. These blogs are particularly prevalent in
the real estate industry where agents typically have a great deal of
flexibility in marketing themselves.

Another type of small online business using blogs are independent
software development firms.

**Formats**

Some weblogs specialize in particular forms of presentation, such as
images (see web comics), or videos (see videoblog), or on a particular
theme, and portmanteaus have been coined for some of these, such as
moblogs (for \"mobile\" blog).

**Audio**

One of the types of blog that has undergone rapid expansion since the
year 2000 is the MP3 blog, which make audio files available to the user.
MP3 blogs are normally targeted at highly specialized musical genres,
such as late 60s soul music or early 90s hip-hop or even the latest
stuff in electronic dance music genres like grime. However, personal
audioblogs are also on the rise (See also Podcasting).

**Photography**

The increasing ubiquity of digital cameras and broadband connections has
made it ever easier to post and share photos on the web. Bloggers have
adapted their software to facilitate the publishing of photos, creating
what is called a photoblog. Photo sharing sites like Flickr have
integrated the typical photo gallery service with photo sharing,
blogging and syndication to create a new kind of social software.

**Video**

In January 2005 the first VloggerCon was held, catering to a new breed
of bloggers, the video blogger. A vlog, or videoblog, is a weblog which
uses video as its primary presentation format. Vlog posts are usually
accompanied by text, image and additional metadata to provide a context
or overview for the video.

**Common terms**

Blogging, like any hobby, has developed something of a specialised
vocabulary. The following is an attempt to explain a few of the more
common phrases and words, including etymologies when not obvious.

**Audioblog**

A blog where the posts consist mainly of voice recordings sent by mobile
phone, sometimes with some short text message added for metadata
purposes. (cf. podcasting)

**Bleg**

A blog entry consisting of a request to the readers, such as for
information or contributions. A portmanteau of \"blog\" and \"beg\".

**Blog feed**

The XML-based file in which the blog hosting software places a
machine-readable version of the blog so that it may be \"syndicated\"
for further distribution on the web. Formats such as RSS and Atom are
used to structure the XML file.

**Blogfoo**

Statements written with an air of generality while obviously pointed at
a specific person or group of people.

**Blog hopping**

to follow links from one blog entry to another, with related side-trips
to various articles, sites, discussion forums, and more.

**Blogorrhea**

A portmanteau of \"blog\" and \"logorrhea\", meaning excessive and/or
incoherent talkativeness in a weblog.

**Blogroll**

A list of blogs. Usually a blogger features a list of his favorite blogs
in the sidebar of his blog. These lists can be made dynamic using
services like BlogRolling.

**Blog site**

The web location (URL) of a blog, which may be either a dedicated
domain, a sub-domain, or embedded within a web site.

**Blogsite**

Sometimes confused with a simple **blog** or blog site, but a blogsite
is a web site which combines blog feeds from a variety of sources, as
well as non-blog sources, and adds significant value over the raw blog
feeds.

**Blogsnob**

A person who refuses to respond to comments on their blog from people
outside their circle of friends.

**Dark Blog**

A non-public blog (e.g. behind a firewall)

**Flog**

A portmanteau of \"fake\" and \"blog\". A blog that\'s ghostwritten by
someone, such as in the marketing department.

**Moblog**

A portmanteau of \"mobile\" and \"blog\". A blog featuring posts sent
mainly by mobile phone, using SMS or MMS messages. They are often
photoblogs.

**Multi-blog**

Creating, maintaining, and running multiple blogs (2 or more)
simultaneously.

**Multi-blogger**

An individual, business, or institution that runs multiple blogs.

**Permalink**

Permanent link. The unique URL of a single post. Use this when you want
to link to a post somewhere.

**Ping**

The alert in the TrackBack system that notifies the original poster of a
blog post when someone else writes an entry concerning the original
post.

**Shocklog**

Weblogs to produce shocking discussions by posting various shocking
content.

**Splog**

A blog which is composed of spam. A Spam blog or \"any blog whose
creator doesn't add any written value.\"

**TrackBack**

A system that allows a blogger to see who has seen the original post and
has written another entry concerning it. The system works by sending a
\'ping\' between the blogs, and therefore providing the alert.

**Troll**

A commenter whose sole purpose is to attack the views expressed on a
blog, for example, a liberal going to a conservative blog, or vice
versa. Many trolls will leave their remarks on multiple posts and
continue to visit the blog, sparking spirited debate amongst the blog\'s
regular readers. Trolls\' verbosity can range from eloquent to crass,
although most trolls probably fall into the latter category.

**Vorage**

A marriage between the words forage and video defined as \"The act of
foraging for video on the internet and sharing it with others.\"
Bloggers or vloggers who share streaming or downloaded video content on
the web often engage in voraging, scouring search engines and obscure
websites to present a curated collection of videos that usually fall
within a set theme or editorial perspective.

Adapted from \"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog\"

+---------------------+------------------------------------------------+
| ![](media/image15.  | Stiki                                          |
| png){width="1.85in" |                                                |
| height="1.7         | wiki                                           |
| 666666666666666in"} |                                                |
+---------------------+------------------------------------------------+

A **wiki,** \<wick-ey\>, is a web application that allows users to add
content, as on an Internet forum, but also allows others (often
completely unrestricted) to edit the content. The term *wiki* also
refers to the collaborative software (wiki engine) used to create such a
website. In essence, the wiki is a vast simplification of the process of
creating HTML pages, and thus is a very effective way to exchange
information through collaborative effort. **wiki** is often interpreted
as the abbreviation for \'what I know, is\', which describes the
knowledge contribution, storage and exchange up to some point.

**Wiki** with an upper case *W* and **WikiWikiWeb** are both used to
refer specifically to the first wiki ever created (25 March 1995). The
WikiWikiWeb is, like the Portland Pattern Repository, a section of a
Portland, Oregon, web site operated by the company Cunningham &
Cunningham. Wiki proponents often spell \'wiki\' with a lower case
\"w\". The name is based on the Hawaiian term *wiki,* meaning \"quick,\"
\"fast,\" or \"to hasten\" (Hawaiian dictionary). Sometimes **wikiwiki**
(or **Wikiwiki**) is used instead of *wiki* (Hawaiian dictionary).

**Key characteristics**

A wiki (wikiwiki) enables documents to be written collectively
(co-authoring) in a simple markup using a web browser. A single page in
a wiki is referred to as a \"wiki page\", while the entire body of
pages, which are usually highly interconnected via hyperlinks, is \"the
wiki\"; in effect, a very simple, easier to use database.

A defining characteristic of wiki technology is the ease with which
pages can be created and updated. Generally, there is no review before
modifications are accepted. Most wikis are open to the general public
without the need to register any user account. Sometimes session log-in
is requested to acquire a \"wiki-signature\" cookie for autosigning
edits. More private wiki servers require user authentication.

**Searching**

Most wikis offer at least a title search, and sometimes a full text
search. The scalability of the search depends on whether the wiki engine
uses a database or not; indexed database access is necessary for high
speed searches on large wikis. On Wikipedia, the so-called \"Go button\"
allows readers to directly view a page that matches the entered search
criteria as closely as possible. The MetaWiki search engine was created
to enable searches across multiple wikis.

**Controlling changes**

Wikis generally are designed with the philosophy of making it easy to
correct mistakes, rather than making it difficult to make them. Thus
while wikis are very open, they provide a means to verify the validity
of recent additions to the body of pages. The most prominent, on almost
every wiki, is the \"Recent Changes\" page---a specific list numbering
recent edits, or a list of all the edits made within a given timeframe.
Some wikis can filter the list to remove minor edits and edits made by
automatic importing scripts (\"bots\").

From the change log, other functions are accessible in most wikis: the
*Revision History* showing previous page versions; and the *diff
feature*, highlighting the changes between two revisions. Using the
Revision History, an editor can view and restore a previous version of
the article. The diff feature can be used to decide whether or not this
is necessary. A regular wiki user can view the diff of an edit listed on
the \"Recent Changes\" page and, if it is an unacceptable edit, consult
the history, restoring a previous revision; this process is more or less
streamlined, depending on the wiki software used.

In case unacceptable edits are missed on the \"Recent Changes\" page,
some wiki engines provide additional content control. It can be
monitored to ensure that a page, or a set of pages, keeps its quality. A
person willing to maintain pages will be warned of modifications to the
pages, allowing him or her to quickly verify the validity of new
editions.

**Vandalism**

The open philosophy of most wikis---of allowing anyone to edit
content---does not ensure that editors are well-intentioned. Wiki
vandalism is a constant problem for wikis, though perhaps overrated.
Studies from IBM have shown that most vandalism to Wikipedia is reverted
in 5 minutes or less.

**History**

Wiki software originated in the design pattern community as a way of
writing and discussing pattern languages. The WikiWikiWeb was the first
wiki, established by Ward Cunningham on March 25, 1995, as a complement
to the Portland Pattern Repository. He invented the wiki name and
concept, and implemented the first wiki engine. Some people maintain
that only the original wiki should be called Wiki (upper case) or the
WikiWikiWeb.

Cunningham coined the term *wiki* after the \"wiki wiki\" or \"quick\"
shuttle buses at Honolulu Airport. *Wiki wiki* was the first Hawaiian
term he learned on his first visit to the islands, when the airport
counter agent directed him to take the *wiki wiki* bus between
terminals. According to Cunningham, \"I chose wiki-wiki as an
alliterative substitute for \'quick\' and thereby avoided naming this
stuff quick-web.\" The term \"wiki\" sounds vaguely similar to the word
Wicca (a religion), but they are completely unrelated.

In the late 1990s, wikis increasingly were recognized as a promising way
to develop private- and public-knowledge bases, and this potential
inspired the founders of the Nupedia encyclopedia project, Jimbo Wales
and Larry Sanger, to use wiki technology as a basis for an electronic
encyclopedia: *Wikipedia* was launched in January 2001; it originally
was based upon UseMod software, but later switched to its own, open
source codebase, now adopted by many other wikis.

In the early 2000s, wikis were increasingly adopted in the enterprise as
collaborative software. Common uses included project communication,
intranets and documentation, initially for technical users. In December
2002, Socialtext launched the first commercial open source wiki
solution. Open source wikis such as MediaWiki, Kwiki and TWiki grew to
over 1 million downloads on the Sourceforge repository by 2004. Today
some companies use wikis as their only collaborative software and as a
replacement for static intranets.

In 2005, the Los Angeles Times experimented with using a wiki in the
editorial section of its web site. The Wikitorial project was quickly
shuttered as vandals quickly defaced it and features to help distribute
administration of the site had been disabled.

Today, the English-language Wikipedia is, by far, the world\'s largest
wiki; the German-language Wikipedia is the second-largest, while the
other Wikipedias fill many of the remaining slots. Other big wikis
include World66, a wiki travel guide, and Susning.nu, a Swedish-language
knowledge base running UseMod software. The all-encompassing nature of
Wikipedia is a significant factor in its growth, while many other wikis
are highly specialized. Some also have attributed Wikipedia\'s rapid
growth to its decision not to use CamelCase.

**Wiki communities**

All known public wikis are listed at WorldWideWiki: SwitchWiki, which
currently lists about 1000 public wiki communities (as of 2004-06-12).

The largest wikis are listed at List of largest wikis and Meatball:
Biggest wikis.

![](media/image16.png){width="1.7604166666666667in"
height="3.6979166666666665in"}One way of finding a wiki on a subject in
which someone is interested is to follow the wiki-node network from wiki
to wiki, or one could take a Wiki bus tour: TourBusStop.

For those interested in creating their own wiki, there are many publicly
available \"wiki farms,\" some of which can also make private,
password-protected wikis. Socialtext, PeanutButterWiki, SeedWiki,
JotSpot, OddWiki, WikiCities, and Wikispaces are seven such services;
more at List of wiki farms.

Many wiki communities are private, particularly within enterprises as
collaborative software.

+---------------------+------------------------------------------------+
| ![](media/image17   | Unconcontrolled Vocabularies                   |
| .png){width="1.5in" |                                                |
| height="1.8125in"}  | folksonomies                                   |
+---------------------+------------------------------------------------+

**Folksonomy** is a neologism for a practice of collaborative
categorization using freely chosen keywords. More colloquially, this
refers to a group of people cooperating spontaneously to organize
information into categories, typically using categories or tags on
pages, or semantic links with types that evolve without much central
control. *The use of formally typed links is however rare. Folksonomy is
rarely supported directly by text navigation facilities, web browsers,
or other tools requiring types.*

**Informal, emergent**

In contrast to formal classification methods, this phenomenon typically
only arises in non-hierarchical communities, such as public websites, as
opposed to multi-level teams and hierarchical organization. An example
is the way that Wikipedia itself organizes information into a \"list
of\", which lists tend to evolve in their inclusion and exclusion
criteria informally over time.

Since the organizers of the information are usually its primary users,
advocates of folksonomy believe it produces results that reflect more
accurately the population\'s conceptual model of the information.
Folksonomy is not directly related to the concept of faceted
classification from library science.

There is debate over any relationship between Folksonomy and folk
taxonomy - the latter is usually the product of someone studying
people\'s interactions and proposing a weak ontology to model it. This
model may or may not be accepted: it is basic to the idea of folksonomy
that it never become a formal taxonomy where a given classification can
be claimed to be \"right\" or not.

Another way to characterize a folksonomy is \"emergent enterprise
taxonomy\". It is sometimes thought useful in facilitating workplace
democracy and the distribution of management tasks among people actually
doing the work.

**History and origin**

A portmanteau of the words *folk* (or *folks*) and *taxonomy*, the term
*folksonomy* has been attributed to Thomas Vander Wal. \"Taxonomy\" is
from \"taxis\" and \"nomos\" (from Greek). \"Taxis\" means
\"classification\". \"Nomos\" (or \"nomia\") means \"management\".
\"Folk\" are people. So \"folksonomy\" literally means \"people\'s
classification management\". The features that would later be termed
\"folksonomy\" appeared in del.icio.us in late 2003 and were quickly
replicated in other social software.

**Academic studies**

Folksonomy is currently understood somewhat narrowly as \"tagging.\"
Social sciences and anthropology have long studied \"folk
classifications\"---how average people (non-experts) classify the world
around them. One reference is Harold Conklin\'s *Folk Classification: A
Topically Arranged Bibliography of Contemporary and Background
References Through 1971* (1972, ISBN 0913516023)

Folksonomies work best when a large number of users all describe the
same piece of information. For instance, on del.icio.us many people have
bookmarked Wikipedia, each with a different set of words to describe it.
Among the various tags used, del.icio.us shows that *reference*, *wiki*,
and *encyclopedia* are the most popular.

\"Jon Udell (2004) argues that the idea of abandoning taxonomy in favor
of lists of keywords is not new, and that the fundamental difference in
these systems is feedback.\"