The difference between a web site and a blog

Is there really a difference between a site and a blog?

Anyone who is poking around the web and hears the word Weblog (blog) being tossed around sooner or later comes to this question: "What the heck is a blog anyway?"

Read on and you will have a clear picture of the differences. I will give you examples of sites which are clearly web sites, other that are clearly blogs, and some that are somewhere in between.

What's a blog, exactly?

Origins.

You may have heard the term, maybe not. I would say in general conversation with non-techies a blog is kind of an online journal.

In fact the term blog comes "Web Log" - glue the words together, drop the starting "W" and "e" and you've got blog.

Now among people writing and working on blogs there can be an infinite debate and discussion about whether this or that is a blog. In fact the very purpose of this lens you are looking at is to try to sort that out for you.

Ok so how do I start?

Some great tools and sites to help get you going

I'd like to recommend some important sites and applications to help you get the most out of blogs. Remember there are many many tools out there so it's hard to figure out where to start.

BlogBridge Web Site: A product that I have worked on, this is a pretty fancy application for those of you who are reading lots and lots of blogs and other feeds. It will really help you save time and be efficient and still know what you need to know. Click to see a really short movie
Or, just try it! BlogBridge runs on Windows, Mac and Linux, it's free and open source! What's not to like?
Collection of the best blogs: One of the wonderful thing about this new world is that there are so many great writers and thinkers out there who are publishing their own blogs with timely and serious commentary on just an amazing set of topics. Check out this directory, built by experts, of the best of the best.

Checklist of Bloggosity

What are the characteristics of a blog

You know now that a blog is a web site, and that there is room for debate about one web site or another: is it or isn't it? Here's your checklist:

Organized as a series of posts
Each post has a title and a body
The most recent post is near the top of the page
There is an RSS or similar feed
There are links to see all the posts by category
There are also links to see posts by month published

Example 1: A classic, traditional blog

Yeah there are many shades of grey

Let's give some examples, shall we?

Here's a very classic blog: Pitos Blog. Yeah, sorry, it's my own blog. Why do I call it classic? It has these traditional characteristics:

Written by an individual person
Formatted as a series of entries, with a title and a date. These entries are called "Posts"
Generally the newest posts are at the top with older one following down the page

So if you take a look again at Pitos Blog, you can plainly see that it follows those rules.

Example 2: A classic, traditional web site

Anyone ever heard of these guys?

Now on the total opposite end of the spectrum is Microsoft .

This of course is very familiar to you. It's a totally conventional web site. It has many of the conventions like a navigation bar on the bottom left, a big splash graphic in near the top etc. etc.

So then, what's the difference?

Not much

As you can see from the examples, there are shades of gray. A blog (web log) is really a web site, nothing more. Let's say it's a kind of web site. One that loosely follows one or more of the conventions enumerated above.

There are many sites that will generate a stupid "how many angels can dance on the top of a pin" arguments among the congiscenti, depending on how bloggish they are, but really my suggestion is not to worry about that.