If my casual reference to “blogs” a few weeks ago confused you, I apologize. It seems the word is still working its way into the national lexicon and I never want to be guilty of being presumptuous, at least as far as the English language is concerned.

Blog is short for weblog, which is simply a website that is organized by time. I don’t know why a two-syllable word like weblog needs to be shortened, but that’s what we Americans do. My full name is Kenneth, but people call me Ken. If my full name was Ken, they’d call me K. This is American vernacular.

Anyone can have a blog, and at first glance it seems that everyone does. All you need is a computer, an ISP, and an opinion. I searched for “Ken’s blog” and got 2,680 hits. Never mind the blogs, who knew there were that many Kens?

In performing research for this article, I looked at about forty blogs, which I thought was a pretty good sampling. If you can’t find some commonalities among forty blogs then, well, you’re just not trying.

The most obvious similarity among blogs is the date-time stamp. Because a blog is like a running journal, it wouldn’t make much sense to the reader without a conspicuously placed date-time stamp. This accomplishes two things: it organizes the entries for the reader; and it keeps the blogger honest by making sure he writes new stuff with some regularity. If you run across a blog whose latest entry is older than about a month, don’t waste your time. There are exceptions, of course. If the blogger has a good track record and announces ahead of time that he is going to be in Italy, Vegas, or detox for a period of time, cut him some slack on the content updates and just check back from time to time. Chances are the wait will be worth it.

Most blogs are heavy on content and light on graphics. I have no problem with this because when it comes to websites, content is king. In fact, if you’re going to use cheesy graphic like an animated Homer Simpson GIF that you didn’t even create yourself, I’d just prefer that you leave out the graphics altogether. Many bloggers like to display pictures of themselves on their blogs. I sort of understand this, though I would never do it myself. People are different, and some of them get a kick out of thinking some dude in Iceland is looking at their picture on the Web. What I don’t understand is the widespread practice of putting pictures of your pet on your blog. What’s that about? I have a dog and I’m not sure I’ve ever even taken a picture of him, never mind posting it on the Web. If you’re a blogger and you think your schnauzer’s unique personality shines through when you post his picture on your blog, guess what? You’re mistaken. Your dog looks like every other dog on the Web. Take it down. Now.

Different blogs have different purposes. Some bloggers carry heavy political opinions, some dedicated their blogs to a favorite sports team, still others are more interested in telling us about something they noticed on the way to work this morning. Some bloggers apparently don’t have much to say because they spend most of their blog page pointing the reader to other people’s blogs.

About halfway through my blog research, I ran across a “business blog” and got really hacked off about it. Is nothing sacred? I mean, the company was calling it a blog, but it was just another corporate subpage with all the branding of a Fortune 500 wannabe. True to their history, most blogs are rogue pages, owned by no one except their creators. This is how it should be. We don’t need corporate America trying to be hip by putting out their own “business blogs.” Here’s a tip: if you’re a for-profit corporation, just call your “blog” a marketing page because that’s what it is, regardless of how cool you think it looks. And leave the real blogs to all the bloggers and bloggettes out there who aren’t selling ad space, but just want to let us all know how their summers went.