What does weblogging mean?
Weblogging is the practice of maintaining a blog by writing and publishing posts, typically on a website organized in reverse chronological order. The activity can cover personal diaries, professional commentary, journalism, branding, and communication. A blogger may publish images, links, audio, or video alongside written entries, although these features vary by platform. Weblogging became especially prominent in the early 2000s, when publishing tools made it possible for people and organizations to maintain their own sites without specialist technical knowledge. It helped establish ideas now associated with social media, including user-generated publishing, online communities, and direct creator-to-audience communication. The word is neither formal nor inherently technical, and its meaning can include the content itself as well as the ongoing practice of updating a blog. Although it once referred mainly to standalone websites, the term can also describe regular posting on blog-based platforms. For most modern readers, blogging is the more familiar expression, while weblogging retains a slightly retrospective or platform-oriented flavor.
The activity or practice of writing, publishing, and regularly updating a blog.
"Her blogging attracted a large readership and occasional sponsorship."
It is normally used as a mass noun, though the rare plural webloggings can refer to separate instances or bodies of blogging activity.
To write, publish, or update posts on a blog, especially on a regular basis.
"He has been weblogging about local politics since 2005."
In this use, weblogging is the present participle of weblog and functions as a gerund-participial verb form.
A rare plural form used for separate instances or bodies of weblogging activity; singular mass usage is much more common.
"The archive preserves the early webloggings of several pioneering online writers."
Before social media feeds and personal podcasts, the blog made ordinary internet users the publishers of their own public voices.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of weblogging
Weblogging combines web, from the term World Wide Web, with log in the sense of a sequential written record. The compound weblog was created as a name for a regularly updated website, and blog subsequently became the standard shortened form. The agents blogger and weblogger developed from the same naming pattern, referring respectively to people who blog or maintain weblogs.
Related word forms
How weblogging is actually used
Weblogging is informal or technological in register and is especially associated with the earlier era of personal and independent blogs. In contemporary usage, blogging is often the more natural term, while blogging on social platforms may also be described as social media posting.
Easily confused with weblogging
A weblog is the website or its collection of entries, whereas weblogging is the activity of creating and maintaining it.