vlog

a video weblog: a web-based diary containing short pieces of video instead of text

People who previously used their blog to write endlessly about everything that mattered to them in life, from politics and the state of the world through to next door's cat or the latest Jamie Oliver recipe, can now take their web-based commentary to the next level. Ardent bloggers can now become vloggers – by filming and broadcasting their work in a video weblog, or vlog.

like blog before it, vlog has rapidly spawned a range of derivatives

Many vlogs have an amateur, experimental feel, with vloggers capturing moments from their everyday lives such as family birthdays, weddings, nativity plays and local festivals. Others have attracted a surprisingly large audience, such as the vlog Rocketboom.com, a daily, three-minute spoof news bulletin which has turned its creator Amanda Congdon into an online celebrity.

Like blog before it, vlog has rapidly spawned a range of derivatives. Vloggers are of course those who participate in the activity, otherwise known as video bloggers. The participle noun vlogging has been coined to describe the activity of video blogging, and there is also evidence for a verb vlog, which can be used both transitively and intransitively. Based on the noun blogosphere, a term coined in the late 1990s to refer to a social network of bloggers, the recent coinage vlogosphere now refers to the vlogging community.

Though people have been experimenting with video blogs for a number of years, the vlogosphere has expanded significantly in the past year, with sites like the Yahoo videoblogging group enabling vloggers to network and share tips. The recent launch of the video-enabled i-Pod seems likely to energize vlogging even more, with podcasters already experimenting with the concept of vodcasting, the creation of Internet-based video programmes which people can subscribe to and download on request.

Background – vlog

Vlog, short for video weblog, is of course based on the term blog, a contraction of the word weblog which first appeared in 1998. Other recent variations on the same theme include phlog, referring to a photo blog, and moblog, a blog which can be updated via a mobile phone.