Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

It really is worth having a look at Wikipedia the free, online community developed encyclopedia. For example, if you search for "blogs" it comes up with an extensive and well organised report on the history of blogs, the various types (personal, political, corporate,collaborative etc), plus extensive links.

Here is a sample section about warblogging:

"Through 2003, weblogs gained increasing notice and coverage for their role in breaking, shaping or spinning news stories. The triggering event was the sudden emergence of an opposition to the Iraq war which was not rooted in the traditional anti-war left. The blogs which gathered news on Iraq, both left and right, exploded in popularity, and Forbes magazine covered the phenomenon. The use of blogs by political candidates, particularly Howard Dean and Wesley Clark cemented their role as a news source, while the increasing number of experts who blogged, including Daniel Drezner and J. Bradford DeLong gave the blog world a cachet among regular journalists. The Adam Smith Institute's entering of the blogosphere helped blogs become a regular stop of UK politicians and opinion-formers. Blogs also arose amongst soldiers serving in the Iraq war. Such milblogs have become the modern version of a war correspondent.

The Iraq War was the first "blog war" in another way - bloggers in Baghdad gained wider readership, and one published a book of his blog. Reading the thoughts of people who were "on the spot" provided a counterpoint, if not a counterweight, to official news sources. Blogs were often used to draw attention to obscure news sources, for example posting links to the traffic cameras in Madrid as a huge anti-terrorism demonstration filled the streets in the wake of the M11 attacks. Bloggers would often provide nearly instant commentary on televised events, which became a secondary meaning of the word "blogging," such as "I am blogging Rice's testimony," i.e. "I am posting my reactions to Rice's testimony to my blog as I watch it."