Blogs or weblogs are websites that are used to 'publish' or place articles that are written by a person or persons. These entries are called 'blog posts' or just 'posts'.

Posts can include straight text, photos or images (photoblogs), video (videoblogs), audio (audioblogs) and hyperlinks.

Blog posts are organizedin reverse chronological order. The blog can serve as an onlin journal or diary, a content mangement site, or an online publishing platform.

An average blog will include post dates, category names, titles, a main body of text, RSS and trackback links, comments, permalinks, and/or a calendar, archives, blogrolls or add-ons or plug-ins.

Blogs can also contain footers that will show the post date, the author, the category, the amount of comments or trackbacks.

There are various types of blogs" 1. Politcal Blogs. Offers news, politic infor, activism or any other political issues, such as campaigning. 2. Personal Blogs. These are usually in the form of a daily diary that records daily experiences, complaints, poems, etc. 3. Topical Blogs. These blogs focus on a specific niche and can be technical in nature. 4. Health Blogs. Deals with health and medical isssues. It features news from health care professional and actual patient cases. 5. Library Blogs. These are also referred to as litblogs. 6. Travel Blogs. Travelers stories can be read here. 7. Research Blogs. Find academic issues and research notes. 8. Legal Blogs. Contains law (technical part) and legal affairs information. These are also known as 'blawgs'. 9. Media Blogs. Media blogs focus on gossip and inconsistencies in the mass meda. Television and newspapers use this blog. 10. Religious Blogs. Of course, deals with religious subjects. 11. Educational Blogs. Applications for education and are usually written by the students and teachers. 12. Collaborative or Collective Blogs. This is a blog that deals with a particular subject but is written by a group of people. 13. Directory Blogs. A listing or collection of numerous web sites. 14. Business Blogs. Entrepreneurs and coporate employees will use this blog to promote the business or to talk about work. 15. Personification Blogs. Deals with non-human subjects, such as dogs. 16. Spam Blogs. Promotes affiliated websites and are sometimes referred to as "splogs".

Entries are usually made to blogs on a daily basis. The term 'blogging' means the act of writing, maintaining or adding information to an existing blog. A 'blogger' is the person or group who maintains the blog.

There are currently over 3 million blogs on the Internet. This figure changes daily. The Internet provides a wide variety of blog software and tools to make it easier to get a blog up and running.

Bloggers can be placed in the following categories:

1. Personal Bloggers. These write blogs that are diaries or on subjects that they may have strong feelings about. 2. Business Bloggers. These promote services and products. 3. Organizational Bloggers. These focus on internal or external communcations within an organization or community. 4. Professional Bloggers. These are people hired to do blogging and are referred to as Probloggers.

Source : www.articlebiz.com