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Welcome to the blogosphere: A brave new world of Web dialogue

A growing number of physicians are sharing their thoughts and opinions on online diaries known as Web logs, or blogs.

By Bob Cook, amednews staff. April 28, 2003.

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The subject at hand, blogs, is going to be unfamiliar to most of you. But more of your physician colleagues are creating them, so I figured it might be worthwhile to inform you about what a blog is, and who is doing them and why.

Here's a short definition: Blog is short for Web log, which is a term for an Internet diary or journal. A blog is a Web site, but it's a particular kind of Web site: one that is more active and interactive than other Web sites, with the writer, or writers, behind it updating content frequently, and inviting instant feedback. Thanks to the advent of free services, starting up a blog can be as easy as filling out a registration form online.

Blogs tend to be a first-person account of whatever is going on in the writer's life or in the writer's head. If you have a blog, you can write about daily mundanity such as eating a cheese sandwich and link to a picture or an interesting article you found about cheese sandwiches.