So what the heck is a Blog? Blog is web jargon for weB LOG. A Web Log is just an on-line journal or diary. Usually a person picks a topic they are interested in (sometimes the topic is that person) and they add entries on a recurring basis. Entries or posts are usually made daily, but can be posted at any interval such as weekly, monthly or even hourly. The act of updating a Blog is called Blogging and the person doing the updating is called a Blogger.

Blogging has been around for several years, but came into the national spotlight within the last year or so. The 2004 Presidential campaign brought a lot of bloggers to the forefront. Will Wheaton, the kid on Star Trek Generation, has had a Blog since 2001. He started the site so people could get to know him and not the geeky guy from Star Trek. This is an excellent example of a personal blog. Will is witty and the Blog can be very funny at times. It seems everyone has there own blog. Blogs can serve many purposes and you can have a blog on just about any topic you want. I have even found a dog daycare that started a blog for its foster dog.  To see the most popular blog topics for 2004 click here.

I'll try to give you the basics to starting a blog on this page, but if you're looking for more advice than this page offers, several books have been written to help you get started blogging. If you're trying to these books can help you figure out design elements, how to come up with content and a myriad of other information.

There are many easy to use, free blog software packages, tools and blog hosting services. Most of these services and tools are designed so that even someone with very limited technical ability can have a blog.

In addition to just blogging, you can make a little money by utilizing Google's AdSense. This program will place ads that are relevant to your Blog's content and you get paid when people click the ads.

If you want to get listed in the search engines, check out the rest of this site for some tips

Blogger
Blogger is a pretty good blog tool and hosting service and it is all free! You just create an account, choose a template and customize it for your site and then voila! You're a blogger. Blogger only requires you to link back to their home page in exchange for their free service. They do not place any ads on your site. They allow you to host AdSense ads. I like this software because you can pull of a pretty professional looking blog site with little  effort.

If you already have a site, you can also use the blogger software to create a blog for your site.

Diaryland
Another free service that doesn;t place any ads on your blog. They just require a link back to their home page.

Easy Journal
Easy Journal is an easy to use simple design blog. They also have a calendar control that makes navigation very easy for users. I have checked out several blogs using this service and none have nay ads, but I don't see that they say they won't put ads on your blog.

There are definitely more blog hosting companies out there, but I figure why pay or display ads when you don't have to so I have listed what I consider to be the best services. If you want to find more blog hosting companies, just do a google search for blog hosting.

Also, there is blog software that cost money to purchase. Depending on what you want in your blog, you may choose to utilize one of these services. Most of these paid services just tack on things like the ability to have users post comments or allow other people to "syndicate" your blog by incorporating it into there site. Although some of the free hosts offer the ability to password protect a blog, the paid services may also offer more robust security or automated sign-up pages. They may also provide you with more space if your blog gets particularly large, but this is usually unnecessary as most blogs don't take up much space.