History of Blogging
Blogging has fast become the most important component of company marketing/branding or individuals’ branding strategy. Before dwelling into the history of Blogging, it is important to discuss the history of web.
History of Web
The Democratisation of online world, brought about by Web 1.0 (Pre 1999 era, commonly known as Read-only era) and reinforced by Web 2.0 (Post 1999 era commonly referred to as Read-Write-Publish-Collaborate era) with renewed focus on Content creation, content publication, interaction, and collaboration. Thus, the Web 2.0 was commonly known as the Read-Write-Publish-Collaborate era. You would notice the birth of Blogger (1999), Twitter (2006), Linkedin (2002), Facebook (2004), Youtube (2005), Reddit (2005), Stumbleupon (2001) , Tumblr (2007) etc. to name a few.
I am sure you would have heard a few of those brands and maybe even built content and interacted with other contributors.
Impact of Web 2.0
Notable among the activities in this era are Education, learning, expressing knowledge to build credibility. This has also enabled Knowledgeable individuals with a high level of intellectual capital to create and publish content that is high on Relevance, Authority and Trust. has made it ushered in a revolution in Personal branding domain.
Earlier, we would attach the tag of Celebrity only to people who would appear on popular news channels, and other traditional forms of communication. However, now with the boom of Web 2.0, a lifestyle influencer who does an Instagram Live to show her community how to apply make up, could have 10,000 people viewing and interacting with her during the Live video.
Similarly, a teenager who has good facial expressions and do a reasonable Lip sync to popular movie dialogues and songs would boast of a online community that runs into Thousands and Lakhs! Aren’t they celebrities who haven’t featured on a traditional media platform yet but do have a considerable following of like minded people?
Read our previous blog on Tiktok
Thus, it wont be counted unfair to say that Blogging has provided a push to the Aware and Knowledgeable community of this world and catapulted them into sharing their knowledge, thoughts and experiences and build own community.
So, if you own a Manufacturing company that specialises in making home applicances, it would be tough and expensive to buy a TV ad spot or a Radio jingle spot in traditional media, in order to promote your new electric Tea Kettle. Writing a blog highlighting the features such as capacity of the kettle, ease of use, speed of boiling water, design elements etc would give you enough time to express how you brought the product to life! The comments received in the comment would help you gauge the reader’s sentiment and evaluate your product’s worth and point out the flaws. In the past, we have helped many companies working across News, Ecommerce, BFSI, ITES, Lifestyle, Personal care segment etc segment reach out to the focussed end consumer using this arm of the content marketing strategy.
Journey of blogging
Contrary to popular opinion, Blogging is a relatively new concept that took birth with Justine Hall’s Online diary in 1994. It underwent terminology and functionality changes in 1997 and 1999 till 2004 when it gained a much needed momentum and was declared as Merriam Webster “Word of the Year” in 2004.
One notable incident that led this development was firing of Ms Heather Armstrong who would maintain a personal weblog called “Dooce” to record her daily office events in a satirical manner. In 2002, when the startup company owners got a wind of her satirical blogs, she was fired and the process was called “Dooced”. This event caused a hue and cry among the online community with respect to employee rights and freedom to express oneself. This propped up the word Blog and it went on to become the Merriam Webster Word of the Year in 2004.
Rags to Riches
Today the blogging community is a huge community and it is divided in different segments. Travel community has its own niche wherein travel bloggers share thoughts and each other’s travel bucket lists and contribute to each other’s developments.
At this time, you may like to check out BnBNation blogs on Travel and Hospitality
Similarly, an BFSI sector blogger would be spelling out the major and minor details of the recently launched insurance schemes. A different path would be followed by other segments of bloggers in different domains.
However the beginning of the Blogging as an activity was humble!
| Year | Number of Blogs |
| 1999 | 23 |
| 2006 | 50 million |
| 2010 | 152 million |
| 2012 | 173 million |
| 2018 | 504 million |
Did you see that jump- From 23 blogs in 1999 to 504 million blogs in 2018, including the one that you are reading right now!
To further that, there are almost 104 million bloggers like me in this world who are talking about the following topics:
- Expert Advice
- How to
- Product Reviews
- Software Review
A quick question for you: Can you name at least one blogger or 1 blogging site for each of the 4 blogging topics?
Moving on, there are significant developments in the field of Blogging since 1999 and they are as follows:
| Year | Length of a blog post / Word count |
| 2004 | 808 words |
| 2018 | 1151 words |
Though the length of a blog post differs from one niche to another and from one B2B to B2C Marketing strategy, however, the average length of a blog post has increased considerably in the last 16 years.
I really doubt if i can help this blog post reach 1150 words! I would appreciate your patience more than mine in case i do!
Do people earn money from blogging?
Now let us dive deeper into the elephant in the hall! Come on, you wish to know the answer to this question, isn’t it? The truth be told, out of 104 million bloggers and 504 million blogs across the world only a meagre percentage makes enough money to live off blogging as a full time activity. So, those who ask you to start blogging for a living, this is a reality check. However, if you consider which segment you should specialise in inorder to start money by blogging, then, Finance is one. This is one such segment which has the highest propensity to help you earn money and non monetary incentives based on the quality of content you shell out.
You know the reason behind it? Well, people who dabble in non financial segments, are a bit apprehensive about which financial products to choose from. Other apprehensions include where to invest their hard earned money. I have seen senior professors who are a PRO in their field to feel nervous before making a big financial investment. In view of the same, people tend to read a lot before taking the plunge. Thus, it has been seen that financial bloggers start making money earlier than other segments. Again, this is not a generalisation but an empirically derived trend.
Source of inspiration:
Statista
Wonderfully charted out history of blogging! Thank you for the insights, Ambuj!
History of blogging is indeed intriguing and blogging is a fast expanding domain. It empowers the content creator and you can make friends around the world who share the same interests. So i guess blogging is a gift as well!
This was so deep and useful. I loved reading history of blogging
Thank you Sonia! I have been blogging since 2016 and found the history of blogging quite intriguing and worth a blog post! I am glad you find the post useful.
Wow this article makes me feel really old. What a great review on the history of blogging.
I am glad that you find this blog post helpful!
Who would’ve thought blogging actually started in the 1900’s?!! Wish I had gotten in on it a little sooner 🙂
Haha… It’s never too late! I have read your blog posts and they are of immense value to the reader and that is what matters the most!
I listened the podcast that you attached in the article. Super fascinating. Offer a lot of insights
Thank you for your positive words!
Glad to know about the history of blogging I’ve learned something to this post awesome!
I am glad that I could value to your Learning curve!
This was so interesting! Thank you for sharing the history of blogging because me, like many other people have been super curious about this history.
Kileen
cute & little
I am glad that I was able to throw light on something that you wanted!!
This is a very interesting history of blogging. I can’t believe how quickly it took off from nothing to millions.
Love learning that it became word of the year in 2004 coz I started blogging in 2006. I feel like I’m one of the first ones haha.
That is deep. Though I’ve been blogging for some years, I never knew the history of blogging. Good writing
This is an amazing history of blogging. I didn’t even realize blogging was a thing in the 90s. I do wish I would have started blogging earlier myself. I definitely think growing my reach would have been a bit easier to be honest.
This is very interesting, I had no idea that blogging goes that far! 1994, amazing!!!