New Delhi: Blogs are all about opinion - yours, mine or somebody else's. And the Internet is letting you put everything - from your best thought-out argument to your deepest, darkest fantasy - in the cyberspace.
So, what is a blog? A blog is a website in which the blogger posts items on a regular basis. It displays the postings in reverse chronological order.
It is like an online diary. Anyone can start one and has the freedom to write whatever he wants on it. What's characterstic of a blog is that you can remain anonymous if so choose.
Updating or adding information on one's blog is called blogging and someone who maintains it is a blogger.
Since they first appeared in 1995, blogs are already a force to reckon with, affecting public opinion and mass media around the world.
Justice for Jessica, an online condemnation of the verdict in the Jessica Lall murder case, is an example of public opinion finding a voice that everyone can hear.
Had it not been for blogs, the Monica Lewinsky-Bill Clinton story would have been under the cover. You wouldn't have known about the 'big' story if a blog hadn't broken the story about Newsweek worrying whether to publish the story on Monica and Clinton.
9/11 saw blogs that were online obituaries or a call for war on terror. There were even voices of reason trying to calm troubled waters. No doubt, blogs have gained immense popularity and they are breaking, shaping and spinning opinion.
But with the good, comes the bad. Some blogs elevate watercooler conversation to resemble sensational claims and become stories themselves. Critics worry that bloggers don't respect privacy and an unbiased point of view is almost completely unheard of in the blog-o-sphere.
But the fact remains - blogs are here to stay.
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