Noting that the initial objective of the Web was to be a space for sharing information, Berners-Lee wrote in his initial blog post that it "took off" as a publishing medium.

"WWW was soon full of lots of interesting stuff, but not a space for communal design, for discourse through communal authorship," he wrote.

"Now in 2005, we have blogs and wikis, and the fact that they are so popular makes me feel I wasn't crazy to think people needed a creative space."

Going Mainstream

Berners-Lee first proposed the Web in 1989 while developing ways to control computers remotely at CERN, the Geneva-based European Organization for Nuclear Research. He created the first browser at the end of 1990.

He now holds the 3Com Founders chair at the Laboratory for Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also directs the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), an open forum of companies and organizations with the mission to lead the Web to its full potential.

Blogging began as a few individuals keeping online journals and has morphed into an industry unto itself, with its own terminology (blogs, bloggers, blogosphere), data formats, software applications, and servers. It is even used as a method of corporate communication among management, employees, and customers.

The concept quickly caught on and became a way for pundits to offer regular commentaries online. Servers catering to bloggers now provide an interactive feature that lets readers enter their own comments on the main posts.

Eight Million and Counting

In America, at least, blogging is growing by leaps and bounds.

According to a study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, blog readership grew by 58 percent in 2004 to a full 27 percent of those who regularly use the Internet.

Some 7 percent of the 120 million U.S. Internet users, or eight million people, say they have created a blog.

As one of the latest to jump on the bandwagon, Berners-Lee wrote, "I am going to try this blog thing using blog tools. So this is for all the people who have been saying I ought to have a blog."