As business people use the Internet more for getting smart, there's a new spin on sharing your thoughts.

Blogs, short for Web logs, are private or public or group ramblings about a certain topic. They can start out on one topic or as a journal or diary and then grow by people adding associated content. If you remember the term "groupware," then blogs are similar.

Until recently, the concept has been dwelling on the fringes for communications between computer geeks. So while it's not new, it soon could be ready for prime-time business.

Blogs are organized with items appearing in reverse chronological order (the most recent postings appear first). Typically they include links to other Web pages on the Internet.

As an application, they look something like a combination of e-mail, Lotus Notes and a free-form discussion group. Sometimes blogs form rings, which connect sites with like topics together, so a reader can see different sides of an issue.

Some important technology visionaries are already using blogs. Pioneering veterans such as Dan Bricklan, Mitch Kapor and Ray Ozzie have active sites. Given that these are the inventors of spreadsheets and groupware, that's an impressive list.






The best part for the home-based worker is that it is easy to set up. You won't need a staff of corporate information technology people to install or maintain it.

For example, the $39.95 Radio UserLand is a Weblog tool that lets people quickly publish knowledge on an intranet or Internet site. It is archived and accessible to others using search engines.

It runs on a desktop and will automatically build a Weblog, organize and archive postings, and include pictures or links to the Web in minutes. It takes all the hassle out of Web site publishing.

Alternatively, people can try to set up a site. This product was developed by Pyra Labs and recently purchased by Google. Providers, such as AOL and Yahoo, are also rumored to be baking blogs in their own innovation ovens.

Blogs are nonstandard technology. From my perspective, blogs are weird. They can contain inconsequential chatter, prone to individual, not corporate communications, and come out of left field. But that's exactly the direction from which other tsunami business technologies have come.

Cheryl Currid is president of Currid & Co., a Houston technology research and analysis firm. For more information, visit E-mail comments to