when important events are happening around the world, most people turn to traditional media sources, such as CNN and BBC, for their new. However, during the invasion of Iraq by the United States and its allies in early 2003, a significant number of people followed the war from thepoint of an anonymously Iraqi citizen who called himself "Salam Pax" ( salaam means) "peace"in Arabic, and pax means "peace" in Latin).
Salaam Pax wrote a diary about everyday life in Baghdad during the war, and posted it on his web site. Pack's online diary life in Baghdad during was a kind of web site known as a "bogs" . Blogs, short for "web logs," are online diaries usually kept by individuals, but sometimes they are written by companies and other groups of people. They are a rapidly growing type of web site on the Internet. There are estimated to be several hundred thousand blogs on the Internet, and with the popularity of other southern social media sites, the number of people writing online about their lives continues to grow.
A blog differs from a traditional web site in several ways. Most importantly, it updated much more regularly . Many blogs are updated every, and son are updated several times a day . Also, most blogs use special software or web sites which are specifically aimed at bloggers, so you do not need computers difficult to create your own blog. This means that ordinary people who may find computers difficult to use can easily set up and start writing their own blog. In 2003, the Internet company AOL introduced their own blogging service, enabling its 35 million members to quickly and easily start blogging.
There are many different kinds of blogs. The most popular type is an online diary of links, where the blog writer surfs the Internet and then posts link to sites or news articles that they find interesting, with a few comments about each one. Other types are personal diaries,where the writer talks about their life and feelings. Sometimes these blogs can be very personal.
There is another kind of blogging, called "moblogging" short for " mobile blogging " Mobloggers use cell phones to take photos, which are posted instantly to the Internet. When the content and images posted online involve news subjects, bloggers become citizen journalists. In fact, the Korean web site OhMyNews was a wall known for articles from international citizen journalists. However, in 2010, OhMyNews stopped posting new articles . Instead , it is now a blog site where citizen journalists can choose what makes the headlines, or just share ideas about how regular pepole are changing the news world.
nyone who visits the web site of a big media company can Cleary see how the idea of blogging has changed the reporting of news. Quite often , a list of reader comments follow news articles. It seems that the news is becoming less like a report or a lecture, and more like a conversation, where anyone can join in.