The Birth of Blogging

(Pinterest: alchetron.com)

The date of 17 July 1997 was chosen as the symbolic date of birth of the blog. It refers to the development by Dave Winer, American software engineer and writer, of the software that allows its publication.
Therefore, he is considered one of the “fathers” of blogging, even though he never used the term “blog”.

The term “weblog” was coined in December 1997 by Jorn Barger, on his “Robot Wisdom” website, which was based on Winer’s software. He used the term to describe the sites previously referred to as “Online Diaries” or even “Personal Pages”.
On his websites he published essays and resources on James Joyce and soon added a series of interlinked weblog sections titled “Fun,” “Art,” “Issues,” “Net,” “Tech,” “Science,” “History,” “Search,” and “Shop.”

It was in 1999 that Peter Merholz proposed the abbreviation “blog” on his website.