Scott Rosenberg on 'the first blogger'

Back in the first session, I asked you to find out who the first blogger was. Lots of you have posted some interesting responses to this - Sophie has a good historical rundown plus pics of some of the early bloggers, Sean has a good timeline plus links, Michael links out to a good CNet piece on this subject, Paul argues that trying to find out who the first blogger was is kind of like blogging itself and Fabienne makes the point that a lot of you made - that although Jorn Barger may have coined the term 'weblog', that doesn't really make him the first blogger.

This whole question was a big noise in the blogosphere last year, around the (supposed) tenth anniversary of blogging. The Wall Street Journal wrote an intended celebration of blogging's tenth birthday but, because they named Barger as the first blogger, they caught a lot of flak from other bloggers keen to correct this claim (along with other mistakes). 

Scott Rosenberg, an author/journalist who specialises in technology (he used to work on the online magazine Salon) wrote an excellent round-up/response to this. Have a look and try the links if you want to see what various bloggers wrote in response to the WSJ. Rosenberg followed up with a really good piece about it all on The Guardian's Comment is Free in which he tries to sum up the main lessons of the row.

First up, he points out that trying to name 'Barger or anyone else as first blogger is a futile exercise'. You may be pleased that I set you off in the first session on a 'futile exercise'. But the idea was to bring out Rosenberg's key point:

"Like so many online innovations, blogging didn't spring fullgrown from some visionary's fertile forehead. It evolved as a bundle of online publishing practices; and as software developers created tools to make those practices easier, the form and tools advanced together."

In other words, blogging emerged as a result of actions on the part of lots of different people and institutions. It's still developing as the result of the new ways people are using blogs. Rosenberg sees the blog response to the WSJ story as an example of that. Sure, there was a lot of posturing in the row but at the end, if you look at the ideas bloggers came up with in response to the WSJ's misguided assertions, you end up with a better picture of how blogging developed.

Rosenberg goes on to say that:

Today, the blog - with its links, reader comments and archive page for each post - feels obvious and intuitive. It's the default format for a website.

It's an interesting point - blogs, with their time sensitivity/comments/privileging of the latest content/links etc have now become the way we expect certain sorts of websites to be - especially the websites produced by people in the journalism business.

(BTW The pic's from Scott Rosenberg's personal website)