Related Resources • Free Blog Hosting

From Other Guides • Blog Defined • Blog Invasion • Blog Indexes

The word blog is a popular term derived from web log (or weblog). If you read it as we blog, you can see how the term arose. Blogging is the posting of a regularly updated log on the Web. Blogs often consist of random musings and interesting links from the blogger. This type of expression has been around for almost as long as the Web, but early blogs were referred to as online diaries or journals.

Blogging didn't become widely popular and easy until about 1999, when people started publishing scripts that made it easy and painless for anyone to update a weblog. Blogs take many forms, but most can be categorized as online diaries, logs of interesting news items, or thoughts and links devoted to a particular subject or interest.

Today, there are a number of popular tools and a variety of websites that allow you to create and maintain your own blog for free. I've assembled a page of links to some of the more popular and interesting of the free blog hosting sites. With most of these you can have your own weblog setup in minutes and post updates almost instantly. They are typically so easy to use, that if you know how to click on a link and fill out a simple form, you can be blogging in no time.

Who knows, perhaps your exercise in truly free speech will be as revolutionary as Thomas Paine's publication of Common Sense ... or then again, maybe not.

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