Editing Blog (section)

===Rise in popularity===
After a slow start, blogging rapidly gained in popularity. Blog usage spread during 1999 and the years following, being further popularized by the near-simultaneous arrival of the first hosted blog tools:
* [[Bruce Ableson]] launched [[Open Diary]] in October 1998, which soon grew to thousands of online diaries. Open Diary innovated the reader comment, becoming the first blog community where readers could add comments to other writers' blog entries.
* [[Brad Fitzpatrick]] started [[LiveJournal]] in March 1999.
* Andrew Smales created Pitas.com in July 1999 as an easier alternative to maintaining a "news page" on a Web site, followed by DiaryLand in September 1999, focusing more on a personal diary community.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://cjrarchives.org/issues/2003/5/blog-jensen.asp?printerfriendly=yes |title=Emerging Alternatives: A Brief History of Weblogs |first1=Mallory |last1=Jensen |date=September–October 2005 |website=Columbia Journalism Review |publisher=Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism |access-date=March 29, 2008 |url-status=usurped |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080411075325/http://cjrarchives.org/issues/2003/5/blog-jensen.asp?printerfriendly=yes |archive-date=April 11, 2008 }}</ref>
* [[Blogger (service)|Blogger]] (blogspot.com) was launched in 1999<ref>{{cite web |last1=Bull |first1=Glen |last2=Bull |first2=Gina |last3=Kadjer |first3=Sara |title=Writing with Weblogs |url=https://tl-cdn.pbseducation.org/courses/tech195/docs/writing_with_weblogs.pdf |publisher=International Society for Technology in Education |access-date=December 6, 2023}}</ref>
<!-- EXPAND OR DELETE? -->