They contain short, frequently updated posts, arranged chronologically with the most recently posted item appearing at the top of the page. In addition to text, blogs can contain photos, images, sound, archives and related links, and can incorporate comments from visitors. The process of creating and maintaining a weblog is known as ‘blogging’, and authors are known as ‘bloggers’.

Blogs are made available via web-based publishing tools, meaning that they can be quickly and easily created and maintained without the need for technical knowledge or web design expertise. Many blogging tools are free to use.

Other activities with their roots in blogging include mobile blogging, video blogging and podcasting:

• Mobile blogging, or moblogging, is the ability to update blogs while on the move using devices such as mobile camera phones or PDAs (personal digital assistants).
• Videoblogging, vlogging or sometimes vog, is the practice of blogging using video. The term relates to blog entries actually delivered by video, rather than a video uploaded as part of a blog entry.
• Podcasting is a web-based broadcasting mechanism with roots in the blogging community. Podcasters create audio files, such as MP3 files, and then make them available online. From there, the podcast can be registered with content aggregators (gatherers of web content) for inclusion in podcast directories. Users can browse these directories, and subscribe to specific podcasts. These are then downloaded to digital music or multimedia players for listening to at their convenience.