Off The Record verweist auf einen Artikel im Wall Street Journal „Happy Blogiversary„, während sich Times Online mit Blog-Monetizing beschäftigt, „Blogging for dosh„.
Warum eigentlich 1997? Wikipedia: Der Begriff Weblog tauchte 1997 erstmals auf der Website von Jorn Barger auf, die Kurzform „Blog“ im Jahr 1999, dem Jahr, in dem allgemein der Boom dieser Art von Webseiten begann
Wobei das nicht ganz richtig ist, wie man in der englischsprachigen Wikipedia nachlesen kann: The term „weblog“ was coined by Jorn Barger on 17 December 1997. The short form, „blog,“ was coined by Peter Merholz, who jokingly broke the word weblog into the phrase we blog in the sidebar of his blog Peterme.com in April or May of 1999.[5][6][7] This was quickly adopted as both a noun and verb („to blog,“ meaning „to edit one’s weblog or to post to one’s weblog“).
Das Schicksal von Jorn Barger zeichnet einen traurigen Lebenslauf:
Previously a longtime resident of the Rogers Park neighborhood in Chicago, Barger was living in Socorro, New Mexico as of late 2003. Several bloggers initiated an outpouring of concern and speculation in December 2003 when Barger had not been seen online for some months. However, Barger had been known to take unexplained absences from the Internet before, and his departure turned out again to be temporary; Robot Wisdom returned in February 2005.
In a July 2005 Wired magazine item, writer Paul Boutin reported encountering a „homeless and broke“ Barger walking with a mutual friend in San Francisco, California. The article said that Barger, „living on less than a dollar a day“[1] had allowed his weblog’s domain registration to lapse, but that Boutin found Robot Wisdom back online a few weeks later. Boutin claimed in the story that upon subsequently meeting him at a pub, Barger told him that the previous time they had met he had been carrying a panhandling sign he had not shown him. Barger reportedly told him the sign had read, „Coined the term ‚weblog‘, never made a dime.“ Barger has since said that the Boutin article was mostly „fiction.“ For his part, Boutin published a clarification in his own weblog, saying the headline Wired had chosen might have misled readers into thinking Barger was „living on the street,“ rather than staying with friends.
Robot Wisdom went offline again in late January 2007. On 10 February, Barger placed a note on his „auxiliary“ free hosted weblog soliciting $10 (US) donations, payable to his web host, to help „save robotwisdom.com“. By 12 February, robotwisdom.com was online again.
As of April 2007, Barger is in El Dorado, Arkansas, and most days can be found hanging out at the Barton library
Update: natürlich gibt es kein fixes Datum, wann denn nun Weblogs geboren wurden. Manche bezeichnen Tim Berners-Lee als einen der ersten „Blogger“, da er bereits sehr früh schon angefangen habe, Webseiten zu kommentieren, die er auf seinen Surftouren entdeckt hatte. Wie auch immer, anbei zwei Blogartikel, die sich dieses Themas annehmen, wer denn nun der erste Blogger war, was ich für ziemlich müßig halte: a short history of blogging und Wall Street Journal Tries to Re-Write Blogging History
Und was ist mit den frühen Anfängen der deutschen Blogosphäre? Kann ich wenig zu sagen, da ich erst 2002/2003 als Blogger geboren wurde und mich zu Beginn recht wenig auf die deutschen Blogs fokussiert hatte, mehr international (ein Lotus Notes Fachblog war das hier mal). Wahrscheinlich wissen Blogger wie Jörg Kantel, Oliver Gassner und andere mehr zu berichten, wie und wann das damals hier anfing?
