Sometime in 1971 - Stanford's Les Earnest creates the «finger» protocol.

December 1977 - The finger protocol becomes an official standard.

January 1994 - Swarthmore student Justin Hall begins compiling lists of links at his site, links.net, and continues adding to the site for 11 years.

January 1995 - Early online diarist Carolyn Burke publishes her first entry for Carolyn's Diary.

April 1997 - Dave Winer launches Scripting News, which he calls the longest-running Web log currently on the Internet.

September 1997 - Slashdot begins publishing «News for Nerds.»

December 1997 - Jorn Barger's RobotWisdom.com site apparently becomes the first to call itself a Web log.

Sometime in 1999

• Brad Fitzpatrick launches Livejournal, which he calls his «accidental success.»
• Peter Merholz of Peterme.com declares he has decided «to pronounce the word 'weblog' as 'wee-blog.' Or 'blog' for short.»
• The word «blog» first appears in print, according to dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster.

August 1999 - Three friends who founded a San Francisco start-up called Pyra Labs create a tool called Blogger «more or less on a whim.»

January 2001 - First crop of blogs nominated for the «Bloggies» award.

October 2001 - First version of Movable Type content management software becomes available.

February 2003 - Google acquires Pyra and its Blogger software.

May 2003 - First official version of WordPress open-source blogging software released for download.

October 2003 - Six Apart releases first version of its Typepad blogging service.

January 2004 - Boston-based Steve Garfield launches his video blog, considered one of the first such «vlogs.»

October 2005 - VeriSign buys Dave Winer's Weblogs.com. Around the same time, AOL snaps up blog publisher Weblogs Inc.

February 2006 - Veteran blogger Jason Kottke abandons his yearlong attempt to live off of micropayments through his blog.

January 2007 - Members of the Media Bloggers Association are among the first bloggers to receive press credentials from a federal court.

February 2007 - Freelance video blogger Josh Wolf becomes the longest-serving journalist behind bars in U.S. history, on contempt charges.