web blogs

[cypher_lee]

Hi guys.

In my WIP i have a part of the story told in the form of a web blog. I was wondering if anybody on here could tell me when web blogs first came into use.

At the moment my story is set in 1993, but i'm not sure if web blogs were in action in this period. Any help would be great, thanks.

[Richard]

It was really about 1994/95 that you'd have started seeing them, although blogs as such only really took off a few years ago. Of course, he could just have a webpage where he posted updates, but it wouldn't be called a blog. Unless he's a pretty techie guy, he probably wouldn't have had one - everything web related was pretty stunningly expensive and fiddly at the time.

Alternatively, you might look into 'Fingers'. They were basically the prototype for the idea.

[cypher_lee]

ok, thanks.


What on earth were fingers by the way???

[hpoppink]

What is the purpose of the web log? Is your blog section there because the character is keeping a journal online? Are there family members and friends who have been told to check the web log occasionally for updates on the character's life? Or is it a theme-based site where strangers come for community, editorials, and information?

Back in the mid-90's you could get your own website. Usually people would use a homepage for posting text and basic graphics. They usually contained static information, like a brief autobiography or a resume. One could certainly use this like a blog, although such use was not common then.

For finding community online, common sources were virtual worlds and bulletin boards (forums). Not to mention the exciting world of multi player role playing games.

I hope that helps.

[scribbler1382]

I'd probably go with usenet (newsgroups) or a private version of them for that time period. Remember, the term "web log" was first used in 1997 and the shortened versions "blog" didn't show up until 1999. Readers love to find this kind of stuff and let you know loudly...usually at a book signing in front of someone you desperately want to impress. :)

[Richard White]

If not usenet, the three major BBs in 1993/94 were Prodigy, Compuserve and GEnie. AOL was around, but it didn't start to dominate until around 1996, IIRC.

[BlueTexas]

Some common Bulletin Board Services back then (and akin to these forums, though all text--on those monitors that were all black/green or that horrid orange for text) were GEnie (that E is not a typo) and Prodigy.

Those were private services like scribbler suggested above. I'm not sure they were using the terms newsgroups or usenet back that. I remember BBS, not those two.

I can recall using Prodigy on the internet (not WWW--not even Windows) back in 1989 or 1990.

I'm pretty sure Prodigy was the first BBS, and it ran on DOS. The posting was rather like web-based email is today, or PM'ing someone.

[Mistook]

In 1993, barely anybody was online yet. The Lynx browswer was still the only game in town. Web pages were all text and links. Everything was in Times New Roman font, and the only formatting control you had was over the size (headers) and certain emphasis marks like bold and italics.

There were no colored fonts, and it wasn't possible to integrate images into a page. None of that would happen until Netscape came along in 95.

In fact, in 1993, Windows 3.1 was still the standard OS, probably the fastest connection speed you could hope for was 28.8KPS, and in the media, the internet was still being referred to as "The Information Superhighway" and it was discussed as a future phenomenon... ie "In five years, 70% of American households will be wired up to the information superhighway."

In order to have a web page in 1993, you had to know HTML. You had to mark up the pages yourself in a text editor. There was no such thing as a "webspinner" or "what you see is what you get" editor yet.

The whole thing blew wide open in 1996, when windows 95 swept the nation, along with AOL. There was also a fierce competition between Netscape and Internet Explorer - both of them inventing new HTML tags to allow for more dynamic web pages.

Online journaling was a phenomenon that began around 98, among teenaged girls, all of whom were out to show just how great they were at formatting their own sites. Such journals were typically sleek, minimalist, and full of attitude.

These journals rose as a backlash to the typical "geocities" type home-pages with god-awful background tiles - gaudy fonts, and lots of cutsie-ootsie animated GIFs - usually with a Calvin and Hobbes theme. Those began to die out in 1998.

The minimalist Grrl-power journals were a short lived fad. BLOGGER type services came along to open the world of online journaling to the averag idiot who had no ability to code with HTML. Suddenly anybody could have a nice looking "web log". This began in 1999, but didn't catch fire until 2000.

[Medievalist]

I would definitely go with UseNet, if you're sticking with 1993. I'd also point out that Tim Berners-Lee, the inventer of HTML and the World Wide Web had, in 1992, what we'd now call a web log, at http://info.cern.ch/. You can see an archived version of his page here:

http://www.w3.org/History/19921103-hypertext/hypertext/WWW/News/9201.html

This was not something most users would have had the tools or access to do--that said, in 1993, if you were at various universities, in my case UCLA, you had very fast, very direct (no modem needed) access to the 'net. And yeah, by the end of '93, we were playing with HTML, in my case, because I worked for a company making e-books and seriously researching hypertext.

[Tirjasdyn]

You could invent a small local bbs. As long as the mod gave you access you could have your own forum. I had one which I uses as an ongoing story. It was actually very good for journalling. All you needed was a modum, a telnet program and dos.

If you knew the codes you could get any color you wanted.

[Richard]

Some common Bulletin Board Services back then (and akin to these forums, though all text--on those monitors that were all black/green or that horrid orange for text) were GEnie (that E is not a typo) and Prodigy.

Don't forget Fidonet. Over here, that was a very big part of the BBS scene back then.

[scribbler1382]

Don't forget Fidonet. Over here, that was a very big part of the BBS scene back then.

Yeah, it was here, too, but I don't thing the 3 day wait for a reply would suit the original question. :)