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Blogging 101 is mostly about the blogging vocabulary. To understand blogs, you need to know the terms blog, platform, domain, and web host. Once you have mastered these key elements of blogging, you can enter any conversation about blogging with confidence. After you know what exactly a blog is, you will be on your way to passing the final exam of blogging 101.

Blog is shorthand for web log. Where a log is like a diary, so it's an online diary! Blogs are generally published in reverse chronological order (newest first, oldest last). While most blogs are text, more and more are embracing video and audio. The rest of blogging 101 has to do with the technical side of things. If you are setting up a blog, you will need a platform, a web host, and a domain.

A blogging platform is a computer software program that allows you to write posts and to update your blog. Your platform is also what you use to design the look of your blog, from color scheme to font size. Common platforms are Typepad and WordPress. A web host is a place where your web files are exposed to the rest of the world. The web host will take care of various things like accepting page requests from internet users and returning the appropriate web page. Don't worry, they make all this transparent, so you don't have to worry about it! You just need one.

The domain is the online address of your blog, and usually ends in 'dot com', though it may it 'dot net', 'dot org' or various newer extenstions.

Now that you know what a blog is, what a platform is, and what domains and hosts are, congratulate yourself! You'll be able to hold a basic conversation with your fellow bloggers now. It wasn't that hard, now was it?