Inventions and discoveries spring up from the strangest causes and events. The can opener was invented 50 years after the can, leaving people with chisels and knives to use. Fortune cookies were invented, not by a Chinese, but the American, M&M’s were made for soldiers in war, and not for children. The toothbrush was invented by a prisoner. The coinage of the term, blog, to live up to the trend, was also an evolution of a not so mundane occurrence.
There are different versions regarding the history of blogging, but the first one noted was the event on December 17, 1997, when Jorn Barger, author of Robot Wisdom called his new webpage, Robot Wisdom Weblog. Although the idea of blogging was supposedly predicted by William Gibson, saying that one day, people will make a living pre-surfing for others.
The transformation from Weblog to “blog”
“I’ve decided to pronounce the word ‘weblog’ as wee-blog. Or ‘blog’ for short.”--- Weblogger Peter posted in his site in May 1999. It was at a time wherein the blog community were itching for a term to identify themselves with. The choices were presurfers, microportals, and escribitionists. With the limited and unattractive choices, the terms blog, and blogger have spread out with viral speed.
Many weblog hosting services came out after that, and at present, 10 years before the first unofficial blog, there are over 71 million blogs all over the world. No one knows where this trend will lead to, but it is concluded that blogging has ceased to be merely a leisure pursuit.