I am sure anybody who has browsed the Internet has come across the term blog or blogging. In fact, if you are an avid Internet user, you might even own a blog.

Wikipedia explains the concept of a blog as follows :

A blog (a contraction of the term “Web log”) is a Web site, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. “Blog” can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

But a blog is much more than a mere website. A blog provides you the power to communicate, to share your thoughts on a subject close to your heart, and initiate a conversation with the visitors to your blog who read what you write.

A blog helps in bringing together like minded people who share a common belief and aid them in expanding their knowledge by sharing their personal experiences.

But the most endearing aspect of a blog is that you do not need to have any knowledge of website design or coding to start your own blog. There are packaged software available freely which will take care of all those things, leaving you to concentrate on your writing. A blog software will allow you to easily include text, graphics, video and audio in your post without any hassle thus making it a rich medium to share your thoughts with the world outside. Some of the most popular blogging software are WordPress, B2Evolution, Drupal and Joomla just to name a few. Strictly speaking, Drupal and Joomla are content management systems which go beyond mere blogging though people do use them to blog as well.

Some would term a blog as a Journal, a Diary, a Publication tool, an Administrative tool, and a Research source.

To help you better understand the concept of blogging, here is a video by CommonCraft which explains the concept of a blog in a visually appealing way.

[youtube=http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=NN2I1pWXjXI]