U-M prof says blogging, social connections around for decades

Blogging isn’t some sort of new fangled trend developed in the last couple of years. University of Michigan Prof. Paul Resnick explains how it has been around for decades.Excerpt:About 185 million blogs are being tracked around the world by one estimate. Blogging – both amateur and professional – has become a cultural phenomenon.Paul Resnick, a professor with the University of Michigan School of Information, has expertise in social computing and social networks.Q: When did blogging first become recognized?A: Before the name “blogs” existed, people were updating their Web page with the latest little item they had. There were a few people who had e-mail newsletters they had with what today we would consider blog entries. That was 1988 or sometime around that.It happened first with e-mail distribution lists. Then people had Web pages. When it really took off and became available to a lot of people is when software tools came out. That was tools like WordPress or services that you can create a blog like blogger.com. Now, creating a new blog entry is filling out a form. You don’t have to do anything about Web design. That opened it up to people who had a whole lot to say but aren’t computer people.Read the rest of the story here and how Ann Arbor’s ProQuest launched a new website here.