If you were on the internet in the early 2000s or even earlier, you’ll remember that it was a very different landscape. Back then, some of the most popular websites used to be blogs, often run by a single person. Nowadays, most influential internet blogs are massive multi-author affairs that publish content at a breakneck pace.

Although blogging remains popular, it’s no longer the only channel at your disposal to share your thoughts with the rest of the world. Thanks to social media platforms, podcasts, and even self-publishing, it’s easier than ever to find an audience.

In this article, we’re going to take a step back and talk about the history of blogging. Then we’ll show you some examples of outstanding blogs in 2021 to prove that no, blogging is not dead. Let’s get to it!

A Short History of Blogging

We can divide the history of blogging into two periods. There’s the era before platforms such as WordPress.com (basically the dark ages of blogging), and there’s everything afterwards. Let’s start by talking about the dark ages.

Before WordPress

Throughout its history, the concept of ‘blogging’ hasn’t changed all that much, even if blogs themselves have. Most internet historians point towards Links.net as the first blog on the internet:

That’s a glimpse of Links.net from 1996, two years after its launch. The blog was created by Justin Hall, who used it to write about other websites he found on the web and share his personal thoughts. Back then, the concept of blogging didn’t even exist.

It took several years, until around 1997, for the concepts of personal pages and online diaries to transform into what we now know as blogging. If you look back at some of the other blogs published around that time, you’ll notice that they share a similar aesthetic:

Those are glimpses from a time long before modern web design sensibilities began to emerge. Back in the 90s, it wasn’t even common for blogs to have images, since most people were still working with relatively slow internet connections.

During these dark ages of blogging, you needed at least a rudimentary understanding of HTML if you wanted to launch your own blog. CSS didn’t become popular until about 1996, keeping most users’ design options fairly limited.

Likewise, finding hosting and setting up a website was nowhere as simple as it is right now. Even if you’re not technically inclined, there are hundreds of tutorials, guides, and platforms that make launching your own blog incredibly straightforward. Back then, if you didn’t have the technical know-how, you had no way to blog – at least not until the rise of blogging platforms.

WordPress.com Enters the Picture

The end of the 90s saw the birth of the first blogging platforms. Among those early pioneers were names such as LiveJournal and Blogger. Both launched in ‘99, and they still exist today, although they look nothing like their earlier incarnations.

Here’s the ‘99 version of LiveJournal, for example:

And this is what LiveJournal looks like today:

Those two platforms (among others) paved the way for a new generation of bloggers. Finally, in the early 2000s, you could launch your own blog without needing to know anything about coding or how to set up a website. You just had to sign up for an account, configure your blog, and get to work on publishing your first post.

That level of simplicity translated into a massive wave of new blogs hitting the web. Now anyone could publish their thoughts online, and hopefully find an audience. However, the first blogging platforms didn’t offer many customization options. That’s what WordPress.com set out to fix.

The open source version of WordPress started development around 2003. Two years later, WordPress.com launched to the public, enabling everyone (including you) to use the software to launch a blog in a matter of minutes:

The idea behind WordPress wasn’t necessarily groundbreaking, even in 2003–2005. However, the open source software and the WordPress.com platform exploded in popularity in large part due to their ease of use.

WordPress gave bloggers without a technical background access to powerful tools to customize their websites, including with plugins and themes. Over time, WordPress grew far beyond blogging. Now, you can use the software to create almost any type of website you can imagine:

Nowadays, WordPress is everywhere, and that isn’t an exaggeration. Over 40% of all websites use the open source version of WordPress or the WordPress.com platform.

Among the websites that use WordPress.com (and its VIP hosting services), you’ll find big names such as Disney, Airbnb, Spotify, and TED Talks. In the next section, we’ll show you just what you can do with a WordPress blog in 2021.

5 Outstanding Examples of Blogs in 2021

Blogging is no longer the only channel at your disposal to build an audience online and engage with them. However, it’s far from dead – there are somewhere around 600 million blogs online today, for everything from personal private use to a key marketing channel for huge corporations.

To give you a glimpse of what you can accomplish with your own blog, let’s check out some of the most influential blogs in 2021.

1. Lifehacker

Lifehacker is one of the most eclectic blogs on the web. It publishes everything from tips on parenting to cooking advice, tech-related articles, and more. The website is part of a massive network of blogs that includes other big names such as Gizmodo, Jezebel, and Kotaku. 

Overall, Lifehacker is a perfect example of what modern blogging looks like. It often involves large teams of authors collaborating to publish new articles as frequently as possible, covering as broad a range of topics as they can and hoping to bring in more traffic. 

2. VentureBeat

VentureBeat straddles the line between a news website and a blog, which is something that’s become very common. It covers startup and tech-related news, and it publishes new posts at a staggering rate.

The most significant difference between a news website and a blog is that the latter offers a unique take on events. With a blog, readers expect to read about your opinions, not just the facts.

Although VentureBeat manages to keep up with the breakneck pace of tech news, it also fleshes out articles with enough content to earn it a place among the most popular blogs.

3. How-To Geek

How-To Geek is one of the most popular websites on the internet, and it’s a perfect example of a didactic blog. The blog publishes a broad array of tech tutorials, covering everything from how to update your Operating System (OS) to how to resolve common problems with your devices. 

How-To Geek also publishes tech product reviews.That makes it an invaluable resource for people looking to make their next big purchases.

4. LiveStrong

So far, we’ve focused mostly on tech-related blogs. However, you don’t have to write about technology to have a successful site. 

It probably comes as no surprise that some of the most popular online blogs focus on health and fitness, and LiveStrong is one example. On this blog, you’ll find articles about everything from new diets to exercise guides and mindfulness advice.

5. GatesNotes

One-person blogs aren’t as common as they were in the 90s and the early 2000s. However, if you’re one of the most well-known names in the world, having a blog remains a fantastic way to share your thoughts outside of social media and interviews.

GatesNotes covers Bill Gates’ musings and experiences running the Gates Foundation, discussions about books he’s read, and even talks about education. It’s the perfect example of running a blog to talk about any of your interests, even if you don’t want to share details about your personal life.

5 Bonus Blogs Created By People Like Us

You don’t need to be a billionaire to have success as a solo blogger, however. Millions of people find their own version of success by blogging. 

Travel Blogs

Travel blogs are always popular. There’s just something about seeing the world through someone else’s eyes – especially when that someone is “a regular person” like you – that is just incredibly appealing. There are no shortage of travel bloggers, but there is always room for one more, such as the SUITCASE Travel blog, for example. 

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Food Blogs

Humans have a love affair with food, such that even a photo of an artfully-arranged plate of food can make us salivate. Likewise, we love to read about food, imagine ourselves creating the delicious-looking recipes we see online, and we envy those who make it all look so easy. Blogs such as Lucy’s Friendly Foods allow us to indulge in our sweet confection desires.

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Book Review Blogs

Although the world has changed since people first began blogging about the books they love (or hate), and we see book reviews under the titles at places like Amazon, book review blogging is still alive and well. It’s as though we long to connect with someone who feels the same way we feel about books or genres or authors, so when we discover those people online, we want to consume their thoughts and delve into their likes and dislikes. Blogs like Simone and Her Books give us that sense of sharing our favorites with someone just like us.

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Arts and Crafts Blogs

Everyone longs to create something beautiful or fanciful or useful, but we don’t all have an innate sense of how to do this. That’s why we flock to bloggers who teach us what we need to know to fulfill our creative desires. A great example is Let’s Art Journal which shows how we can take things we have in our everyday world, and transform them into artistic expressions. 

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Diary and Journal Blogs

Everyone has a voice, and WordPress.com’s mission is to enable everyone to share that voice with the world. Personal online diaries and journals give us all the opportunity to reach out and make personal connections. In exchange, people from all corners of the globe learn how to better understand differing perspectives. The Diary of a Disabled Person is an excellent example of this. We get a glimpse of a person we may never meet, but that person’s thoughts, feelings, hopes, and concerns become ours for a moment in time. 

Conclusion

These days, social media gets all the spotlight as the medium that people use to make their voices heard. However, blogging is still the best way to share your thoughts with an audience online without limiting yourself to only a few hundred characters or becoming one voice in a sea of ‘for you’ posts.

Since 2005, WordPress.com has been on a mission to democratize the web, and blogging is at the core of that venture. Using our platform, you can launch a blog even if your budget is $0. Over time, you can grow it into a publication with a committed audience. You have all the tools you need at your disposal, so all that’s left is to start writing.

What’s your favorite blog in 2021? Tell us about it in the comments section below!