A spam blog, sometimes referred to by the neologism splog,^[1] is a blog which the author uses to promote affiliated websites, to increase the search engine rankings of associated sites or to simply sell links/ads.

The purpose of a splog can be to increase the PageRank or backlink portfolio of affiliate websites, to artificially inflate paid ad impressions from visitors (see MFA-blogs), and/or use the blog as a link outlet to sell links or get new sites indexed. Spam blogs are usually a type of scraper site, where content is often either inauthentic text or merely stolen (see blog scraping) from other websites. These blogs usually contain a high number of links to sites associated with the splog creator which are often disreputable or otherwise useless websites.

There is frequent confusion between the terms "splog" and "spam in blogs". Splogs are blogs where the articles are fake, and are only created for search engine spamming. To spam in blogs, conversely, is to include random comments on the blogs of innocent bystanders, in which spammers take advantage of a site's ability to allow visitors to post comments that may include links. In fact, one of the earliest uses of the term "splog" referred to the latter.^[2]

This is used often in conjunction with other spamming techniques, including spings.

History[link]

The term splog was popularized around mid August 2005 when it was used publicly by Mark Cuban,^[3][4] but appears to have been used a few times before for describing spam blogs going back to at least 2003.^[5] It developed from multiple linkblogs that were trying to influence search indexes and others trying to Google Bomb every word in the dictionary.

The term may be applied to more recent^[when?] infections, most noticeably those reported by Webtrends^[6] in April 2008. Leveraging botnets, spammers have infected several thousand pages which display prominent keywords from the Google Trends site by bypassing the CAPTCHA authentication method, which had previously subdued all spam bloggers. A recent sighting puts the top ten Google hottest terms of the day as all being owned by spambots on the Blog Results page. As they have gone mostly unchecked, they have also infected real SERP Page One web results and corrupt any hot search terms more than a month old. Hackers are using a number of methods including link farming, spamdexing and keyword stuffing each in a simple, moderated form to achieve top PageRank results. Most of the sites contain an animated graphic which appears as a YouTube streaming video. Once clicked, users become infected with one of several variants of spyware. This generates revenue for the spambot's owner.

Controversy[link]

This article's Criticism or Controversy section may compromise the article's neutral point of view of the subject. Please integrate the section's contents into the article as a whole, or rewrite the material. (November 2010)

Splogs have become a major problem on free blog hosts such as Google's Blogger service.^[7] By one estimate, about one in five blogs are spam blogs.^[8] These fake blogs waste valuable disk space and bandwidth as well as pollute search engine results, ruining blog search engines and damaging bloggers community networking (e.g. Blogger's next blog link).

Web search engines are commonly susceptible to link flooding, especially from highly weighted bloggers.

Splogs sometimes choose a name similar to a popular blog in order to benefit from the occasional incoming link from careless bloggers, who think they are linking to the popular site. Splog activity can cause problems for legitimate bloggers, if search engines respond to splog by blocking or treating as 'suspicious' all web addresses in a particular domain.

Stealing expired domain's PageRank[link]

Some spammers register domains that have just recently expired, so that the previous owner's pagerank persists^{[citation needed]}. Thus, building a splog on a expired domain enhances the pagerank that the links.^{[citation needed]}

See also[link]

• Adversarial information retrieval
• Spam in blogs
• Blog scraping
• CAPTCHA

References[link]

External links[link]

• Blogger: About Spam Blogs
• SVMs for the Blogosphere: Blog Identification and Splog Detection
• news.com.com: "Tempted by blogs, spam becomes 'splog'"
• The Guardian, 17 November 2005, "Cashing in on fake blogs"
• Examples of splog creation software
• Pings, Spings, Splogs and the Splogosphere: 2007 Updates
• Examples of splogs from the Swedish area

Spam

Spam
Origin
Place of origin	United States
Creator(s)	Hormel Foods Corporation
Details
Course	Main course
Serving temperature	Hot or Cold
Main ingredient(s)	Pork

The Spam-mobile

Spam (its name a portmanteau of the words "Spiced" and "Ham")^[1] is a canned precooked meat product made by the Hormel Foods Corporation, first introduced in 1937. The labeled ingredients in the classic variety of Spam are chopped pork shoulder meat, with ham meat added, salt, water, modified potato starch as a binder, and sodium nitrite as a preservative. Spam's gelatinous glaze, or aspic, forms from the cooling of meat stock.^[2] The product has become part of many jokes and urban legends about mystery meat, which has made it part of pop culture and folklore.^[3] Through a Monty Python sketch, in which Spam is portrayed as ubiquitous and inescapable, its name has come to be given to electronic spam, including spam email.

In 2007, the seven billionth can of Spam was sold.^[4] On average, 3.8 cans are consumed every second in the United States.^[5]

Nutritional data[link]

Spam is typically sold in cans with a net weight of 340 grams (12 ounces). A 100-gram (3.5-ounce) serving of original Spam provides 1,300kJ (310 Calories or kilocalories), 13 grams of protein (26% DV), 3 grams of carbohydrates (1% DV), 27 grams of total fat (41% DV), including 10 grams of saturated fat (49% DV). The cholesterol content of Spam is 70 milligrams (23% DV). A serving also contains 57% of the recommended daily intake of sodium (1369 milligrams). Spam provides the following vitamins and minerals: 0% vitamin A, 1% vitamin C , 1% calcium, 5% iron, 3% magnesium, 9% potassium, 12% zinc, and 5% copper.^[6][7]

Varieties[link]

There are several different flavors of Spam products, including:

• Spam Classic – original flavor^[8]
• Spam Hot & Spicy – with Tabasco flavor^[8]
• Spam Less Sodium – "25% less sodium"^[8]
• Spam Lite – "33% less calories and 50% less fat" – made from pork shoulder meat, ham, and mechanically separated chicken^[8]
• Spam Oven Roasted Turkey^[8]
• Spam Hickory Smoke flavor^[8]
• Spam Spread – "if you're a spreader, not a slicer ... just like Spam Classic, but in a spreadable form"^[8]
• Spam with Bacon^[8]
• Spam with Cheese^[8]
• Spam Garlic (see photos below)
• Spam Golden Honey Grail – a limited-release special flavor made in honor of Monty Python's Spamalot Broadway musical^{[citation needed]}
• Spam Mild^{[citation needed]}
• Spam Hot Dogs^{[citation needed]}

In addition to the variety of flavors, Spam is sold in tins smaller than the twelve-ounce standard size. Spam Singles are also available, which are single sandwich-sized slices of Spam Classic or Lite, sealed in retort pouchs.

International usage[link]

As of 2003, Spam is sold in 41 countries worldwide, sold on six continents and trademarked in over 100 different countries.^[9]

United States and territories[link]

In the United States in the aftermath of World War II, a troupe of ex-G.I. women was assembled by Hormel Foods to promote Spam from coast to coast. The group was known as the Hormel Girls and associated the food with being patriotic. In 1948, two years after the group's conception, the troupe had grown to 60 women with 16 forming an orchestra. The show went on to become a radio program where the main selling point was Spam. The Hormel Girls were disbanded in 1953.^[10] Spam is still quite popular in the United States, but is sometimes associated with economic hardship because of its relatively low cost.^[11]

The residents of the state of Hawaii and the territories of Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) consume the most Spam per capita in the United States. On average, each person on Guam consumes 16 tins of Spam each year and the numbers at least equal this in the CNMI. Guam, Hawaii, and Saipan, the CNMI's principal island, have the only McDonald's restaurants that feature Spam on the menu. In Hawaii, Burger King began serving Spam in 2007 on its menu to compete with the local McDonald's chains.^[12][13] In Hawaii, Spam is so popular it is sometimes referred to as "The Hawaiian Steak".^[14] One popular Spam dish in Hawaii is Spam musubi, where cooked Spam is combined with rice and nori seaweed and classified as onigiri.^[15]

Spam was introduced into the aforementioned areas, in addition to other islands in the Pacific such as Okinawa and the Philippine Islands, during the U.S. military occupation after World War II. Since fresh meat was difficult to get to the soldiers on the front, World War II saw the largest use of Spam. G.I. started eating Spam for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. (Some soldiers referred to Spam as "ham that didn't pass its physical" and "meatloaf without basic training".)^[16] Army soldiers commonly refer to SPAM as Special Army Meat due to its introduction during the war. Surpluses of Spam from the soldiers' supplies made their way into native diets. Consequently, Spam is a unique part of the history and effects of U.S. influence in the Pacific.^[17]

The perception of Spam in Hawaii is very different from that on the mainland. Despite the large number of mainlanders who consume Spam, and the various recipes that have been made from it, Spam, along with most canned food, is often stigmatized on the mainland as "poor people food". In Hawaii, similar canned meat products such as Treet are considered cheaper versions of canned meat than Spam. This is a result of Spam having the initial market share and its name sounding more convincing to consumers.^[18]

In these locales, varieties of Spam unavailable in other markets are sold. These include Honey Spam, Spam with Bacon, and Hot and Spicy Spam.^[17]

In the CNMI, lawyers from Hormel have threatened legal action against the local press for running articles decrying the ill-effects of high Spam consumption on the health of the local population.^[19][20]

Spam that is sold in North America, South America, and Australia is produced in Austin, Minnesota, (also known as Spam Town USA) and in Fremont, Nebraska. Austin, Minnesota has a restaurant with a menu devoted exclusively to Spam, called "Johnny's SPAMarama Menu".^[21]

In 1992, SPAM Lite was introduced, and in 2001, SPAM Oven Roasted TURKEY was introduced.

United Kingdom[link]

In the United Kingdom, Spam is often sliced, battered and deep-fried becoming known as 'Spam fritters'. It was common in the 1940s, during World War II, as a consequence of rationing and the Lend-Lease Act, when Hormel began to increase production toward British and Russian markets.^[22]

After World War II, Newforge Foods, part of the Fitch Lovell group, were awarded the license to produce the product in the UK (doing so at its Gateacre factory, Liverpool),^[23] where it stayed until production switched to the Danish Crown Group (owners of the Tulip Food Company)^[24] in 1998, forcing the closure of the Liverpool factory and the loss of 140 jobs.^[25] By the early 1970s the name Spam was often misused to describe any tinned meat product containing pork, such as pork luncheon meat.

The image of Spam as a low cost meat product gave rise to the Scottish colloquial term "Spam valley" to describe certain affluent housing areas where residents appear to be wealthy but in reality may be living at poverty levels.^[26]

Asia[link]

Spam is often served with rice in Asia.

In China, Spam is an increasingly popular food item, and often used in sandwiches. Hormel has had a joint-venture in Shanghai for 16 years which has been highly successful in promoting Spam.^[27] In 2005, the Chinese division of Spam was one of the most profitable parts of the Hormel company.^[28] This development is due, in part, to the increasing per capita income in Shanghai, coupled with the expansion of their food diet toward more meat.

In Okinawa, Japan, the product is added into onigiri alongside eggs, used as a staple ingredient in the traditional Okinawan dish chanpurū, and a Spam burger is sold by local fast food chain Jef.^[29]

In Hong Kong, Spam is commonly served with instant noodles and fried eggs, and is a popular item in cha chaan teng. Spam is less popular than Ma Ling Meats, its main competitor in the Hong Kong processed meat market. Although recent controversies surrounding high salt content in Ma Ling products may allow Spam to gain market share.^[30]

In the Philippines, Spam may be eaten with fried rice and eggs or as a sandwich with pandesal. It is often eaten for breakfast. During the rescue efforts after Typhoon Ondoy (Ketsana) in 2009, Hormel Foods donated over 30,000 pounds of Spam to the Philippine National Red Cross.^[31]

In South Korea, Spam (Hangul: 스팸; RR: seupaem) is popular in households as an accompaniment to rice. A local television advertisement claims that it is the most tasty when consumed with white rice and gim (laver seaweed used for some types of handrolls). Spam products currently being sold in Korea are made with more high-quality ingredients than other countries as Korean manufacturer took advantage of the name which gained its popularity during and after Korean War as a smuggled or leaked ration and improved it over time as the country became richer. Because of this, Spam in Korea tastes different from the ones sold in other countries, and is a relatively expensive product compared to its competitors in Korea.

To this day, a widespread black market of US military Spam – estimated to total nearly 400,000 cans sold – can be found in South Korea.^{[citation needed]} In contemporary Seoul, South Korea, Spam is considered a delicacy^{[citation needed]} and can be seen in store windows alongside imported European luxury goods such as wine, exotic mushrooms and Swiss chocolates.^{[citation needed]} Spam is also an original ingredient in budae jjigae ("army base stew"), a spicy stew with different types of preserved meat.^[32]

Spam and similar meat preserves can be bought in gift sets that may contain nothing but the meat preserve^[33] or include other products such as food oil or tuna. When invited to another person's home, guests may present their hosts with such a set, or with other food gifts such as fresh fruit, beverages or tteok.

The surfeit of Spam in both North and South Korea during the Korean War led to the establishment of the Spam kimbap (rice and vegetable filled seaweed roll). because of a scarcity of fish and other traditional kimbap products such as kimchi or fermented cabbage, Spam was added to a rice roll with kimchi and cucumber and wrapped in seaweed. Spam was also used by US soldiers in Korea as a means of trading for items, services or information around their bases. Spam is also remarkably popular to a majority of the population, and outranks Coca-Cola and KFC in status as a foodstuff.^[34]

Hormel Spam Museum in Austin, Minnesota.

In Israel, a kosher variant of Spam, known as Loof (Hebrew: לוף‎, distortion of meatloaf), was produced by Richard Levi, and mostly used as part of field rations by the Israeli Defense Forces. A Glatt kosher version was also produced. It was phased out of field rations during the early 2000s and was finally removed from rations when production ceased in 2009.^[35]

Spam celebrations[link]

Spam is celebrated in a small local festival in Austin, Minnesota, where Hormel corporate headquarters are located. The event, known as Spam Jam, is a carnival-type celebration that coincides with local Fourth of July festivities, featuring parades and fireworks that often relate to the popular luncheon meat. Austin is also home to the Spam Museum, and the plant that produces Spam for most of North America and Europe. In addition to the periodic celebration, there is a national recipe competition where submissions are accepted at the top forty state fairs in the nation.^[36]

Hawaii also holds an annual version of Spam Jam in Waikiki during the last week of April.^[37]

The small town of Shady Cove, Oregon is home to the annual Spam Parade and Festival, with the city allocating $1500 for it.^[38]

The Spam Jam is not to be confused with Spamarama, which is a yearly festival held around April Fool's Day in Austin, Texas. The theme of Spamarama is gentle parody of Spam, rather than straightforward celebration: the event at the heart of the festival is a Spam cook-off that originated as a challenge to produce an appetizing recipe for the meat. The festival includes light sporting activities and musical acts, in addition to the cook-off.^[39]

See also[link]

Food portal

• Advanced meat recovery methods
• Breakfast food
• Meat by-product
• Pickled foods
• Potted meat food product
• Spam (Monty Python)
• Spam (song)
• Spamarama

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Spam

• The official Spam web site
• Spam – The Official UK website
• The Book of Spam
• More Spam Recipes
• Saving 'Spam:' Hormel's Fight to Protect Its Famous Product's Name According to ABC News, Hormel is involved in a multi-million dollar trademark dispute with Spam Arrest, a company that blocks obnoxious emails.
• Spam Again: Spam in WWII
• Connolly, Kevin (December 26, 2010). "How the US cemented its worldwide influence with Spam". BBC News online. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12066768. 

A blog (a portmanteau of the term web log)^[1] is a personal journal published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete entries ("posts") typically displayed in reverse chronological order so the most recent post appears first. Blogs are usually the work of a single individual, occasionally of a small group, and often are themed on a single subject. Blog can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

The emergence and growth of blogs in the late 1990s coincided with the advent of web publishing tools that facilitated the posting of content by non-technical users. (Previously a knowledge of such technologies as HTML and FTP had been required to publish content on the Web.)

Although not a must, most good quality blogs are interactive, allowing visitors to leave comments and even message each other via GUI widgets on the blogs and it is this interactivity that distinguishes them from other static websites.^[2] In that sense, blogging can be seen as a form of social networking. Indeed, bloggers do not only produce content to post on their blogs but also build social relations with their readers and other bloggers.^[3]

Many blogs provide commentary on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries; yet still others function more as online brand advertising of a particular individual or company. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, Web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability of readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (art blog), photographs (photoblog), videos (video blogging or vlogging), music (MP3 blog), and audio (podcasting). Microblogging is another type of blogging, featuring very short posts.

As of 16 February 2011 (2011 -02-16)^[update], there were over 156 million public blogs in existence.^[4]

History[link]

Early example of a "diary" style blog consisting of text and images transmitted wirelessly in real time from a wearable computer with headup display, 1995 February 22nd

The term "weblog" was coined by Jorn Barger^[5] on 17 December 1997. The short form, "blog," was coined by Peter Merholz, who jokingly broke the word weblog into the phrase we blog in the sidebar of his blog Peterme.com in April or May 1999.^[6][7][8] Shortly thereafter, Evan Williams at Pyra Labs used "blog" as both a noun and verb ("to blog," meaning "to edit one's weblog or to post to one's weblog") and devised the term "blogger" in connection with Pyra Labs' Blogger product, leading to the popularization of the terms.^[9]

Origins[link]

Before blogging became popular, digital communities took many forms, including Usenet, commercial online services such as GEnie, BiX and the early CompuServe, e-mail lists^[10] and Bulletin Board Systems (BBS). In the 1990s, Internet forum software, created running conversations with "threads." Threads are topical connections between messages on a virtual "corkboard."

The modern blog evolved from the online diary, where people would keep a running account of their personal lives. Most such writers called themselves diarists, journalists, or journalers. Justin Hall, who began personal blogging in 1994 while a student at Swarthmore College, is generally recognized as one of the earlier bloggers,^[11] as is Jerry Pournelle.^[12] Dave Winer's Scripting News is also credited with being one of the older and longer running weblogs.^[13][14] Another early blog was Wearable Wireless Webcam, an online shared diary of a person's personal life combining text, video, and pictures transmitted live from a wearable computer and EyeTap device to a web site in 1994. This practice of semi-automated blogging with live video together with text was referred to as sousveillance, and such journals were also used as evidence in legal matters.

Early blogs were simply manually updated components of common Web sites. However, the evolution of tools to facilitate the production and maintenance of Web articles posted in reverse chronological order made the publishing process feasible to a much larger, less technical, population. Ultimately, this resulted in the distinct class of online publishing that produces blogs we recognize today. For instance, the use of some sort of browser-based software is now a typical aspect of "blogging". Blogs can be hosted by dedicated blog hosting services, or they can be run using blog software, or on regular web hosting services.

Some early bloggers, such as The Misanthropic Bitch, who began in 1997, actually referred to their online presence as a zine, before the term blog entered common usage.

Rise in popularity[link]

After a slow start, blogging rapidly gained in popularity. Blog usage spread during 1999 and the years following, being further popularized by the near-simultaneous arrival of the first hosted blog tools:

• Bruce Ableson launched Open Diary in October 1998, which soon grew to thousands of online diaries. Open Diary innovated the reader comment, becoming the first blog community where readers could add comments to other writers' blog entries.
• Brad Fitzpatrick started LiveJournal in March 1999.
• Andrew Smales created Pitas.com in July 1999 as an easier alternative to maintaining a "news page" on a Web site, followed by Diaryland in September 1999, focusing more on a personal diary community.^[15]
• Evan Williams and Meg Hourihan (Pyra Labs) launched blogger.com in August 1999 (purchased by Google in February 2003)

Political impact[link]

An early milestone in the rise in importance of blogs came in 2002, when many bloggers focused on comments by U.S. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott.^[16] Senator Lott, at a party honoring U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond, praised Senator Thurmond by suggesting that the United States would have been better off had Thurmond been elected president. Lott's critics saw these comments as a tacit approval of racial segregation, a policy advocated by Thurmond's 1948 presidential campaign. This view was reinforced by documents and recorded interviews dug up by bloggers. (See Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo.) Though Lott's comments were made at a public event attended by the media, no major media organizations reported on his controversial comments until after blogs broke the story. Blogging helped to create a political crisis that forced Lott to step down as majority leader.

Similarly, blogs were among the driving forces behind the "Rathergate" scandal. To wit: (television journalist) Dan Rather presented documents (on the CBS show 60 Minutes) that conflicted with accepted accounts of President Bush's military service record. Bloggers declared the documents to be forgeries and presented evidence and arguments in support of that view. Consequently, CBS apologized for what it said were inadequate reporting techniques (see Little Green Footballs). Many bloggers view this scandal as the advent of blogs' acceptance by the mass media, both as a news source and opinion and as means of applying political pressure.

The impact of these stories gave greater credibility to blogs as a medium of news dissemination. Though often seen as partisan gossips,^{[citation needed]} bloggers sometimes lead the way in bringing key information to public light, with mainstream media having to follow their lead. More often, however, news blogs tend to react to material already published by the mainstream media. Meanwhile, an increasing number of experts blogged, making blogs a source of in-depth analysis.

In Russia, some political bloggers have started to challenge the dominance of official, overwhelmingly pro-government media. Bloggers such as Rustem Adagamov and Alexey Navalny have many followers and the latter's nickname for the ruling United Russia party as the "party of crooks and thieves" and been adopted by anti-regime protesters^[17]. This led to the Wall Street Journal calling Navalny "the man Vladimir Putin fears most" in March 2012.^[18]

Mainstream popularity[link]

By 2004, the role of blogs became increasingly mainstream, as political consultants, news services, and candidates began using them as tools for outreach and opinion forming. Blogging was established by politicians and political candidates to express opinions on war and other issues and cemented blogs' role as a news source. (See Howard Dean and Wesley Clark.) Even politicians not actively campaigning, such as the UK's Labour Party's MP Tom Watson, began to blog to bond with constituents.

In January 2005, Fortune magazine listed eight bloggers that business people "could not ignore": Peter Rojas, Xeni Jardin, Ben Trott, Mena Trott, Jonathan Schwartz, Jason Goldman, Robert Scoble, and Jason Calacanis.^[19]

Israel was among the first national governments to set up an official blog.^[20] Under David Saranga, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs became active in adopting Web 2.0 initiatives, including an official video blog^[20] and a political blog.^[21] The Foreign Ministry also held a microblogging press conference via Twitter about its war with Hamas, with Saranga answering questions from the public in common text-messaging abbreviations during a live worldwide press conference.^[22] The questions and answers were later posted on IsraelPolitik, the country's official political blog.^[23]

The impact of blogging upon the mainstream media has also been acknowledged by governments. In 2009, the presence of the American journalism industry had declined to the point that several newspaper corporations were filing for bankruptcy, resulting in less direct competition between newspapers within the same circulation area. Discussion emerged as to whether the newspaper industry would benefit from a stimulus package by the federal government. President Barack Obama acknowledged the emerging influence of blogging upon society by saying "if the direction of the news is all blogosphere, all opinions, with no serious fact-checking, no serious attempts to put stories in context, then what you will end up getting is people shouting at each other across the void but not a lot of mutual understanding”.^[24]

Types[link]

There are many different types of blogs, differing not only in the type of content, but also in the way that content is delivered or written.

Personal blogs

The personal blog, an ongoing diary or commentary by an individual, is the traditional, most common blog. Personal bloggers usually take pride in their blog posts, even if their blog is never read. Blogs often become more than a way to just communicate; they become a way to reflect on life, or works of art. Blogging can have a sentimental quality. Few personal blogs rise to fame and the mainstream but some personal blogs quickly garner an extensive following. One type of personal blog, referred to as a microblog, is extremely detailed and seeks to capture a moment in time. Some sites, such as Twitter, allow bloggers to share thoughts and feelings instantaneously with friends and family, and are much faster than emailing or writing.

Corporate and organizational blogs

A blog can be private, as in most cases, or it can be for business purposes. Blogs used internally to enhance the communication and culture in a corporation or externally for marketing, branding or public relations purposes are called corporate blogs. Similar blogs for clubs and societies are called club blogs, group blogs, or by similar names; typical use is to inform members and other interested parties of club and member activities.

By genre

Some blogs focus on a particular subject, such as political blogs, health blogs, travel blogs (also known as travelogs), gardening blogs, house blogs,^[25][26] fashion blogs, project blogs, education blogs, niche blogs, classical music blogs, quizzing blogs and legal blogs (often referred to as a blawgs) or dreamlogs. Two common types of genre blogs are art blogs and music blogs. A blog featuring discussions especially about home and family is not uncommonly called a mom blog and one made popular is by Erica Diamond who created Womenonthefence.com which is syndicated to over two million readers monthly.^{[27][28][29][30][31][32]} While not a legitimate type of blog, one used for the sole purpose of spamming is known as a Splog.

By media type

A blog comprising videos is called a vlog, one comprising links is called a linklog, a site containing a portfolio of sketches is called a sketchblog or one comprising photos is called a photoblog.^[33] Blogs with shorter posts and mixed media types are called tumblelogs. Blogs that are written on typewriters and then scanned are called typecast or typecast blogs; see typecasting (blogging).

A rare type of blog hosted on the Gopher Protocol is known as a Phlog.

By device

Blogs can also be defined by which type of device is used to compose it. A blog written by a mobile device like a mobile phone or PDA could be called a moblog.^[34] One early blog was Wearable Wireless Webcam, an online shared diary of a person's personal life combining text, video, and pictures transmitted live from a wearable computer and EyeTap device to a web site. This practice of semi-automated blogging with live video together with text was referred to as sousveillance. Such journals have been used as evidence in legal matters.^{[citation needed]}

Reverse blog

A Reverse Blog is composed by its users rather than a single blogger. This system has the characteristics of a blog, and the writing of several authors. These can be written by several contributing authors on a topic, or opened up for anyone to write. There is typically some limit to the number of entries to keep it from operating like a Web Forum.

Community and cataloging[link]

The Blogosphere

The collective community of all blogs is known as the blogosphere. Since all blogs are on the internet by definition, they may be seen as interconnected and socially networked, through blogrolls, comments, linkbacks (refbacks, trackbacks or pingbacks) and backlinks. Discussions "in the blogosphere" are occasionally used by the media as a gauge of public opinion on various issues. Because new, untapped communities of bloggers can emerge in the space of a few years, Internet marketers pay close attention to "trends in the blogosphere".^[35]

Blog search engines

Several blog search engines are used to search blog contents, such as Bloglines, BlogScope, and Technorati. Technorati, which is among the more popular blog search engines, provides current information on both popular searches and tags used to categorize blog postings.^[36] The research community is working on going beyond simple keyword search, by inventing new ways to navigate through huge amounts of information present in the blogosphere, as demonstrated by projects like BlogScope.^{[citation needed]}

Blogging communities and directories

Several online communities exist that connect people to blogs and bloggers to other bloggers, including BlogCatalog and MyBlogLog.^[37] Interest-specific blogging platforms are also available. For instance, Blogster has a sizable community of political bloggers among its members. Global Voices aggregates international bloggers, "with emphasis on voices that are not ordinarily heard in international mainstream media."^[38]

Blogging and advertising

It is common for blogs to feature advertisements either to financially benefit the blogger or to promote the blogger's favorite causes. The popularity of blogs has also given rise to "fake blogs" in which a company will create a fictional blog as a marketing tool to promote a product.^[39]

Popularity[link]

Researchers have analyzed the dynamics of how blogs become popular. There are essentially two measures of this: popularity through citations, as well as popularity through affiliation (i.e. blogroll). The basic conclusion from studies of the structure of blogs is that while it takes time for a blog to become popular through blogrolls, permalinks can boost popularity more quickly, and are perhaps more indicative of popularity and authority than blogrolls, since they denote that people are actually reading the blog's content and deem it valuable or noteworthy in specific cases.^[40]

The blogdex project was launched by researchers in the MIT Media Lab to crawl the Web and gather data from thousands of blogs in order to investigate their social properties. It gathered this information for over 4 years, and autonomously tracked the most contagious information spreading in the blog community, ranking it by recency and popularity. It can therefore be considered the first instantiation of a memetracker. The project is no longer active, but a similar function is now served by tailrank.com.

Blogs are given rankings by Technorati based on the number of incoming links and Alexa Internet based on the Web hits of Alexa Toolbar users. In August 2006, Technorati found that the most linked-to blog on the internet was that of Chinese actress Xu Jinglei.^[41] Chinese media Xinhua reported that this blog received more than 50 million page views, claiming it to be the most popular blog in the world.^[42] Technorati rated Boing Boing to be the most-read group-written blog.^[41]

Blurring with the mass media[link]

Many bloggers, particularly those engaged in participatory journalism, differentiate themselves from the mainstream media, while others are members of that media working through a different channel. Some institutions see blogging as a means of "getting around the filter" and pushing messages directly to the public. Some critics worry that bloggers respect neither copyright nor the role of the mass media in presenting society with credible news. Bloggers and other contributors to user-generated content are behind Time magazine naming their 2006 person of the year as "You".

Many mainstream journalists, meanwhile, write their own blogs — well over 300, according to CyberJournalist.net's J-blog list.^{[citation needed]} The first known use of a blog on a news site was in August 1998, when Jonathan Dube of The Charlotte Observer published one chronicling Hurricane Bonnie.^[43]

Some bloggers have moved over to other media. The following bloggers (and others) have appeared on radio and television: Duncan Black (known widely by his pseudonym, Atrios), Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit), Markos Moulitsas Zúniga (Daily Kos), Alex Steffen (Worldchanging), Ana Marie Cox (Wonkette), Nate Silver (FiveThirtyEight.com), and Ezra Klein (Ezra Klein blog in The American Prospect, now in the Washington Post). In counterpoint, Hugh Hewitt exemplifies a mass-media personality who has moved in the other direction, adding to his reach in "old media" by being an influential blogger.

Blogs have also had an influence on minority languages, bringing together scattered speakers and learners; this is particularly so with blogs in Gaelic languages. Minority language publishing (which may lack economic feasibility) can find its audience through inexpensive blogging.

There are many examples of bloggers who have published books based on their blogs, e.g., Salam Pax, Ellen Simonetti, Jessica Cutler, ScrappleFace. Blog-based books have been given the name blook. A prize for the best blog-based book was initiated in 2005,^[44] the Lulu Blooker Prize.^[45] However, success has been elusive offline, with many of these books not selling as well as their blogs. Only blogger Tucker Max made the New York Times Bestseller List.^[46] The book based on Julie Powell's blog "The Julie/Julia Project" was made into the film Julie & Julia, apparently the first to do so.

Consumer-generated advertising in blogs[link]

Consumer-generated advertising is a relatively new and controversial development and it has created a new model of marketing communication from businesses to consumers. Among the various forms of advertising on blog, the most controversial are the sponsored posts.^[47] These are blog entries or posts and may be in the form of feedback, reviews, opinion, videos, etc. and usually contain a link back to the desired site using a keyword/s.

Blogs have led to some disintermediation and a breakdown of the traditional advertising model where companies can skip over the advertising agencies (previously the only interface with the customer) and contact the customers directly themselves. On the other hand, new companies specialised in blog advertising have been established, to take advantage of this new development as well.

However, there are many people who look negatively on this new development. Some believe that any form of commercial activity on blogs will destroy the blogosphere’s credibility.^[48]

Legal and social consequences[link]

Blogging can result in a range of legal liabilities and other unforeseen consequences.

Defamation or liability[link]

Several cases have been brought before the national courts against bloggers concerning issues of defamation or liability. U.S. payouts related to blogging totaled $17.4 million by 2009; in some cases these have been covered by umbrella insurance.^[49] The courts have returned with mixed verdicts. Internet Service Providers (ISPs), in general, are immune from liability for information that originates with third parties (U.S. Communications Decency Act and the EU Directive 2000/31/EC).

In Doe v. Cahill, the Delaware Supreme Court held that stringent standards had to be met to unmask the anonymous posts of bloggers and also took the unusual step of dismissing the libel case itself (as unfounded under American libel law) rather than referring it back to the trial court for reconsideration.^[50] In a bizarre twist, the Cahills were able to obtain the identity of John Doe, who turned out to be the person they suspected: the town's mayor, Councilman Cahill's political rival. The Cahills amended their original complaint, and the mayor settled the case rather than going to trial.

In January 2007, two prominent Malaysian political bloggers, Jeff Ooi and Ahiruddin Attan, were sued by a pro-government newspaper, The New Straits Times Press (Malaysia) Berhad, Kalimullah bin Masheerul Hassan, Hishamuddin bin Aun and Brenden John a/l John Pereira over an alleged defamation. The plaintiff was supported by the Malaysian government.^[51] Following the suit, the Malaysian government proposed to "register" all bloggers in Malaysia in order to better control parties against their interest.^[52] This is the first such legal case against bloggers in the country.

In the United States, blogger Aaron Wall was sued by Traffic Power for defamation and publication of trade secrets in 2005.^[53] According to Wired Magazine, Traffic Power had been "banned from Google for allegedly rigging search engine results."^[54] Wall and other "white hat" search engine optimization consultants had exposed Traffic Power in what they claim was an effort to protect the public. The case addressed the murky legal question of who is liable for comments posted on blogs.^[55] The case was dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction, and Traffic Power failed to appeal within the allowed time.^[56]

In 2009, a controversial and landmark decision by The Hon. Mr Justice Eady refused to grant an order to protect the anonymity of Richard Horton. Horton was a police officer in the United Kingdom who blogged about his job under the name "NightJack".^[57]

In 2009, NDTV issued a legal notice to Indian blogger Kunte for a blog post criticizing their coverage of the Mumbai attacks.^[58] The blogger unconditionally withdrew his post, which resulted in several Indian bloggers criticizing NDTV for trying to silence critics.^[59]

Employment[link]

Employees who blog about elements of their place of employment can begin to affect the brand recognition of their employer. In general, attempts by employee bloggers to protect themselves by maintaining anonymity have proved ineffective.^[60]

Delta Air Lines fired flight attendant Ellen Simonetti because she posted photographs of herself in uniform on an airplane and because of comments posted on her blog "Queen of Sky: Diary of a Flight Attendant" which the employer deemed inappropriate.^[61][62] This case highlighted the issue of personal blogging and freedom of expression versus employer rights and responsibilities, and so it received wide media attention. Simonetti took legal action against the airline for "wrongful termination, defamation of character and lost future wages".^[63] The suit was postponed while Delta was in bankruptcy proceedings (court docket).^[64]

In early 2006, Erik Ringmar, a tenured senior lecturer at the London School of Economics, was ordered by the convenor of his department to "take down and destroy" his blog in which he discussed the quality of education at the school.^[65]

Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, was fined during the 2006 NBA playoffs for criticizing NBA officials on the court and in his blog.^[66]

Mark Jen was terminated in 2005 after 10 days of employment as an Assistant Product Manager at Google for discussing corporate secrets on his personal blog, then called 99zeros and hosted on the Google-owned Blogger service.^[67] He blogged about unreleased products and company finances a week before the company's earnings announcement. He was fired two days after he complied with his employer's request to remove the sensitive material from his blog.^[68]

In India, blogger Gaurav Sabnis resigned from IBM after his posts questioned the claims of a management school IIPM.^[69]

Jessica Cutler, aka "The Washingtonienne",^[70] blogged about her sex life while employed as a congressional assistant. After the blog was discovered and she was fired,^[71] she wrote a novel based on her experiences and blog: The Washingtonienne: A Novel. Cutler is presently being sued by one of her former lovers in a case that could establish the extent to which bloggers are obligated to protect the privacy of their real life associates.^[72]

Catherine Sanderson, a.k.a. Petite Anglaise, lost her job in Paris at a British accountancy firm because of blogging.^[73] Although given in the blog in a fairly anonymous manner, some of the descriptions of the firm and some of its people were less than flattering. Sanderson later won a compensation claim case against the British firm, however.^[74]

On the other hand, Penelope Trunk wrote an upbeat article in the Boston Globe back in 2006, entitled "Blogs 'essential' to a good career".^[75] She was one of the first journalists to point out that a large portion of bloggers are professionals and that a well-written blog can help attract employers.

Political dangers[link]

Blogging can sometimes have unforeseen consequences in politically sensitive areas. Blogs are much harder to control than broadcast or even print media. As a result, totalitarian and authoritarian regimes often seek to suppress blogs and/or to punish those who maintain them.

In Singapore, two ethnic Chinese were imprisoned under the country’s anti-sedition law for posting anti-Muslim remarks in their blogs.^[76]

Egyptian blogger Kareem Amer was charged with insulting the Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and an Islamic institution through his blog. It is the first time in the history of Egypt that a blogger was prosecuted. After a brief trial session that took place in Alexandria, the blogger was found guilty and sentenced to prison terms of three years for insulting Islam and inciting sedition, and one year for insulting Mubarak.^[77]

Egyptian blogger Abdel Monem Mahmoud was arrested in April 2007 for anti-government writings in his blog.^[78] Monem is a member of the then banned Muslim Brotherhood.

After expressing opinions in his personal blog about the state of the Sudanese armed forces, Jan Pronk, United Nations Special Representative for the Sudan, was given three days notice to leave Sudan. The Sudanese army had demanded his deportation.^[79][80][81]

In Myanmar, Nay Phone Latt, a blogger, was sentenced to 20 years in jail for posting a cartoon critical of head of state Than Shwe.^[82]

Personal safety[link]

One consequence of blogging is the possibility of attacks or threats against the blogger, sometimes without apparent reason. Kathy Sierra, author of the innocuous blog "Creating Passionate Users",^[83] was the target of such vicious threats and misogynistic insults that she canceled her keynote speech at a technology conference in San Diego, fearing for her safety.^[84] While a blogger's anonymity is often tenuous, Internet trolls who would attack a blogger with threats or insults can be emboldened by anonymity. Sierra and supporters initiated an online discussion aimed at countering abusive online behavior^[85] and developed a blogger's code of conduct.

Behavior[link]

The Blogger's Code of Conduct is a proposal by Tim O'Reilly for bloggers to enforce civility on their blogs by being civil themselves and moderating comments on their blog. The code was proposed due to threats made to blogger Kathy Sierra.^[86] The idea of the code was first reported by BBC News, who quoted O'Reilly saying, "I do think we need some code of conduct around what is acceptable behaviour, I would hope that it doesn't come through any kind of regulation it would come through self-regulation."^[87]

O'Reilly and others came up with a list of seven proposed ideas:^{[88][89][90][91][92]}

1. Take responsibility not just for your own words, but for the comments you allow on your blog.
2. Label your tolerance level for abusive comments.
3. Consider eliminating anonymous comments.
4. Ignore the trolls.
5. Take the conversation offline, and talk directly, or find an intermediary who can do so.
6. If you know someone who is behaving badly, tell them so.
7. Don't say anything online that you wouldn't say in person.

See also[link]

	Internet portal
	Journalism portal

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Alavi, Nasrin. We Are Iran: The Persian Blogs, Soft Skull Press, New York, 2005. ISBN 1-933368-05-5.
• Bruns, Axel, and Joanne Jacobs, eds. Uses of Blogs, Peter Lang, New York, 2006. ISBN 0-8204-8124-6.
• Blood, Rebecca. "Weblogs: A History and Perspective". "Rebecca's Pocket".
• Kline, David; Burstein, Dan. Blog!: How the Newest Media Revolution is Changing Politics, Business, and Culture, Squibnocket Partners, L.L.C., 2005. ISBN 1-59315-141-1.
• Michael Gorman. "Revenge of the Blog People!". Library Journal.
• Ringmar, Erik. A Blogger's Manifesto: Free Speech and Censorship in the Age of the Internet (London: Anthem Press, 2007).
• Rosenberg, Scott, Say Everything: how blogging Began, what it's becoming, and why it matters, New York : Crown Publishers, 2009. ISBN 978-0-307-45136-1

External links[link]

Look up blog in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Blogging

• Computer Law and Security Report Volume 22 Issue 2, Pages 127-136 blogs, Lies and the Doocing by Sylvia Kierkegaard (2006)
• Legal Guide for bloggers by the Electronic Frontier Foundation