Are You Blogging?

Today Technorati, a weblog search engine, is tracking 37.8 million weblogs, compared to the 14.2 million on July 2005. This means the "blogosphere" continues to double in size every six months, with folks like you and me creating a weblog every second of the day. Have you started a blog?

A weblog or "blog" is an online journal or diary that is easy to use, frequently updated, and you can start one for free. What makes blogging so appealing is the power to instantly publish content online without ever learning a line of HTML. To create a post, all you have to do is enter your text into a form and hit the publish button. Blogging software is web-based much like your Yahoo! Mail, so you can update your blog and check your email from any Internet-connected cafe in the world. Setting one up is easy and will only take you a few minutes to do.

Naturally you'll want to stylize your page to add your own personality to it, so most of the blogging software out there includes "skins" or templates that give you more creative flexibility. Blogs usually have two to four columns showing the most recent post at the top, a list of categories, archived posts, a comments form and occasionally some advertising banners. If you haven't realized it yet, this is a blog.

Three years ago, most of my friends couldn't stop talking about their blogs and how great they were. I wasn't loving the idea of an online diary of my day-to-day, so I started something less personal, a business blog. Most blogs today cover a wide range of topics, and are a great way to stay in touch with your friends and family. This past Christmas, I created a blog for one of my military girlfriends serving in the Middle East, my sister in college and other family members just so I know what they're up to.

If you have a Yahoo! Account you can start blogging free on Yahoo!360, and even use your Flickr images on a sidebar. Yahoo! Small Business also offers Movable Type and Word Press with their web hosting plans, which makes it easy for those of us who don't want to figure out how to install blogging software on our own server.

Here is a list of other popular blogging software:

LiveJournal (Free)
Typepad (Hosted Service)
MySpace (Free)

I know this may be redundant information for 37.8 million of you, but I can guarantee you there are still many folks out there who have never heard of a blog. Just ask your neighbor.

So do you blog? What blogging software do you prefer?

Disclosure: Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! 360, and Yahoo! Small Business are all online services owned and offered by Yahoo!, Inc., which also owns and operates Yahoo! Tech.