Blog vs Web Site - conversation

What is the difference between a Blog and a Web Site? In a word, conversation.  Blogs are indeed a collection of web pages that each have a URL. Blogs can be read in a browser, just like web pages. Richard Ord, in his blog says Blogs are just web sites. I disagree. Blogs are much more than static web pages.

The big difference is that web sites broadcast one way...to the viewer. Blogs are two way, in fact many way, communication where the readers create a conversation by leaving comments, trackbacks, and links. Web sites don't lend themselves to leaving comments and starting a conversation.

Blogs are as simple as email. Anyone can write a blog without any HTML or web design skills. Blogs are more text oriented, although pictures and graphics can be added. Another big difference is RSS. You can subscribe to a blog and automatically receive new content as it is added. Web sites require that you visit the site to see if anything has changed. However, many web sites are now adding RSS feeds for portions of their site.

You can subscribe to this blog by clicking here if you use a news/blog reader or get it via email by entering your email address where it says "Subscribe Me". Just scroll down the right side panel and look for the box to enter your email address.

This simplicity and ease of use has enabled millions of people to create blogs that never would have created a web site. There are more than 28M blogs today and the number is doubling every 5 months. Yet, the vast majority of people don't know what a blog is, and even fewer read them. Blogs have been around for about 5 years. I just started my blog 6 months ago (September 2005) and already have about 5,000 readers a week.

You can start your own blog for FREE at MSN Spaces.  Try it out! Join the conversation.

Comments

[Robert W. Anderson]

I agree that blogs are not just web sites; but, many blogs don't allow comments or trackbacks (or the latter is so broken it is useless). In fact, Dave Winer's Scripting News allows neither. Is Scripting News not a blog?

Enjoying your blog -- cheers,
Robert