 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Sideblog" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(August 2007) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
A sideblog is a feature on a website, particularly ablog, that allows one to communicate smaller snippets of information than an actual blog post. The reasoning is that a blog post will require thought, argument and some semantic structuring of the post, while a sideblog typically displays "brief asides". A sideblog is meant to illustrate your immediate thoughts, movements or status update, and is usually less than 200characters. Where a blog post may be compared to a newspaper opinion piece, a sideblog would be akin to the "news in brief" column.
Sideblogging is wedded to the concept ofmicro-blogging, where one posts brief snippets to interested observers viatext messaging,instant messaging,email orthe web. Using the same tools, one can post to one's micro-blog and to one's sideblog simultaneously. Most sideblogs are actually embedded micro-blogs that appear in a small sidebar box next to the main blog posts and usefeeds orplugins to display the content.
Frequently updating one's status and frame of mind in an online platform to be viewed by friends gained widespread adoption throughsocial networking tools likeFacebook andMySpace. While those tools are still largely desktop-bound, micro-blogs (and, by extension, sideblogs) are designed to be updated from mobile devices as well as desktop computers. Therefore, it is more convenient to post one's status with a simple text message, and interested parties can note your status by browsing your sideblog or receiving a text orinstant messaging alert.
This meaning came to change with the advent ofblogrolls, blog engineplugins, and widgets and third-party lists ofsocial media, like tag clouds andsocial bookmarks.