From my wife's "The Word Origin Calendar" for today, July 21:
blog: In 1997, using a new technology that allowed him to make daily changes to his home page on the World Wide Web, a journalist called Jorn Barger coined the term "weblog," on the model of a ship or airplane log. In 1999, Peter Merholz read the word as "we blog," and abbreviated it as "blog" on his own site. The word has proliferated, just as the thing itself.
Yes, the word - and the thing itself - has certainly proliferated the past few years, with millions of blogs -- all over the world, in all different languages -- in existence today (although the "short head"/"long tail" distribution is very much in effect, with probably 1% of blogs getting 99% of the traffic). This proliferation has been greeted as a positive force by many, but also with dismay, trepidation, and even attacks by certain members of the traditional/corporate media (hello, Roanoke Times editorial board!) and a few members (fortunately, they appear to be a decreasing number) of the political insider class.
Fortunately, most people seem to get the concept of blogs...a combination of independent citizen journalism, political activism, (sometimes) paid political consulting, accurate (and sometimes less-than-accurate) information, responsible (and sometimes not so responsible) commentary/analysis, highly personal opinion combined with objective/straight reporting, community, social networking, and more. Come to think of it, no wonder why a lot of people still don't understand what blogging is all about. :)