Today the Internet plays a major role in our lives. It is not only the world's biggest library and the best source of current information on almost everything. It is also the fastest way to communicate with friends wherever they live on earth.

The hottest trend and probably the most successful way of expressing yourself on the Internet is the blog.

What does blogging actually mean?

The whole concept revolves around the personal need to express feelings or thoughts, share opinions, spread news or simply have fun. A blog is actually a small individual web page more like a diary that you keep online. It receives regular updates and allows the use of links, photos, videos and extended documents.

What attracts many people to the blogging phenomenon is the great opportunity of making themselves heard. If you want to reach a particular audience, odds are that you can do it via a blog. No wonder they're popular.

The goal and scope of your blog entirely depends on what you the blogger want to achieve. When you've got great pieces of news, funny links or a hobby to talk about, a blog may be just the right way to open up to an international community.

Most often, blogs attract more attention than large and well-designed web pages. How is it possible for blogging to have reached such a status?

First of all, blogs are current -- they provide fresh and rich informational content, and links to other sites or blogs on the topic. Equally important is focus -- blogs zero in on a single issue that is of interest to their regular blog readers.

Why do blogs receive more traffic than other web pages, in many cases today? Ah, I'm glad you asked. It's all a matter of how the search engines work. What a search engine values most is content that fresh and high quality. Blogs tend to provide this, especially the freshness dimension. Fresh meaty interesting blog content pretty much explains blog traffic levels.

As the concept and the technologies of blogging have matured, the idea of an online diary is accompanied now by many commercial blogs. Yes, Virginia, you can make money blogging. In fact, I know of one young man who has bought a house with the money he has made from his blogs. More on that later...

Let's say you like gardening, and you've also started your own home based business of growing plants. A blog on flowers and plants where you share your ideas and experience (and yes, throw in some photos for sure) would illustrate the commercial possibilities of a blog. How? Because you could also write about gardening books or e-books along with telling people where they can buy their gardening supplies. In other words, you not only talk about the joys and challenges of gardening... you also use your blog as a great promotional tool to sell gardening stuff.

Internet marketing and blogging have come together because blogging is such an easy way to share ideas and information. The blog is also an ideal tool for online marketing so the chance to "make extra bucks" is now wide open. The barriers to entry are low. Anybody who can use a computer can learn to run their own blog - and even make money from blogging.