Blogging basics start with understanding the vocabulary of blogs. You need to know what blog, blogging platform, domain and web host all mean. I'll give you a quick overview on what each of these terms mean. Once you know what you're talking about, you'll be able to start blogging on your own.

Blog is shorthand for web log. Where a log is like a diary, so it's an online diary! Blogs are generally published in reverse chronological order (newest first, oldest last). While most blogs are text, more and more are embracing video and audio. The remainder of blogging 101 has to do with more techie stuff. You'll need to have a web host, a domain and a blogging platform.

You'll probably have heard TypePad and WordPress banded about in relation to blogging platforms, these are the 2 most commonly used, though there are dozens of others. The blogging platform is what you type your posts into and by customizing it (not as hard as it sounds), you can get a different look and feel for your blog. A web host is a place where your web files are exposed to the rest of the world. The web host will take care of various things like accepting page requests from internet users and returning the appropriate web page. Don't worry, they make all this transparent, so you don't have to worry about it! You just need one.

The domain is the online address of your blog, and usually ends in 'dot com', though it may it 'dot net', 'dot org' or various newer extenstions.

Now that you know what a blog is, what a platform is, and what domains and hosts are, congratulate yourself! You'll be able to hold a basic conversation with your fellow bloggers now. It wasn't that hard, now was it?