Blog refers to an online journal.  Rather than writing out longhand journals or diaries, people will often take to blogging and it has become a national pasttime in some cases.  (At the bottom of this page is a link to my blog)

In some ways it is similar to a chat room in that you can respond to other people's blog posts and vice versa...except it's not usually 'live'...meaning not everyone is online at the same time.  Normally someone will post a blog and go off to do other things, come back to find that other people have commented on their blog post, and they can then comment on the comments.

Some people use blogs as a way to have interaction with other people.  Some use it more as a journaling mode chronicaling their activities and adventures and sometimes to share with other people.  I have been keeping a blog over on blogspot for over a year and have over 360 entries in there.  I strictly used this as a journal from an artist's point of view, describing art techniques, materials and posting my finished and in-progress artworks.  Rarely, would I have comments from other people...perhaps 1or 2 per month.

That blog was set up primarily to link to my website and to keep the information on my website being updated and refreshed in the major search engines so that my website would stay higher in the results when people did various searches.  The more activity that you have on your website, say in the form of a blog with frequent posts, the more attention it will attract from the search engines.  This is optimal.

eBay recently began a blog for eBay users which has been gathering tremendous popularity here.  One artist that I know has sold 3 paintings from people who saw her work via her eBay blog.  That was a clincher for me, so I began posting here as well as the other place.  Copying and pasting my posts has been a huge time saver for me. 

The eBay blog has been MUCH more active and rarely do I post anything without getting numerous comments on my post.  Thus, it has been a lot more fun, I have met more people here, and it's an additional form of networking which is enjoyable.  I can easily see why people have become so 'addicted' to blogging.  Whether I am getting responses or not, I enjoy the writing process a great deal and often come up with solutions to my painting problems when I am writitng about the process.  I still keep a longhand journal, although I don't write in it as often as I did before.

My Blog