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Urdu Blogosphere of Pakistan

In fact when blogging became prominent in the world, it took some time to reach Pakistan but didn’t much time. It is very difficult to say something about the first blogger of Pakistan but English Blogger Tariq Mustafa and the Urdu Blogger Umair Salam are considered as foremost bloggers of Pakistan. It is said that Tariq Mustafa has started blogging since 2001 or earlier while Umair Salam has started blogging since August 2002 properly. Perhaps people might express their opinion on the internet by presenting Urdu in the form of images in those days. But Umair Salam was the first Urdu blogger who used genuine Urdu (unicode) instead of image Urdu for proper Urdu blogging.

Actually it was very difficult to write Urdu blog rather than today. But Urdu bloggers continued doing their effort for Urdu blogging and some volunteers happened to join at various forums for Urdu computing; and started to try to solve the problems related to Urdu blogging. With the passage of time people started to create their own blogs.

In January 2004 BBC Urdu started its blog. Eventually some volunteers laid foundation of an online forum “Urdu Mehfil” with mutual consent in July 2005. The main objective of this forum was to solve the problems related to Urdu blogging and for the convenience of lay man in writing Urdu on computer. Thus these volunteers found solutions of many problems by the dint of themselves. The creation of this forum was in fact a revolution in the world of Urdu blogging. New horizon of Urdu blogging opened for many people and a lot of blogs were came into existence. Now there is a vast strength of Urdu bloggers who are writing on various topics. These volunteers of Urdu Mehfil made a platform for bloggers named “Urdu Siyara” (Urdu Planet) and all the bloggers were gathered over there to present their articles on that particular platform. Thus it was very convenient for the reader to have all the fresh blogs on Urdu Siyara on a same place instead of reaching out all the blogs separately, that is called “Blogs Aggregator”. Urdu Siyara exists even today and some other Urdu blogs Aggregators are also available in which “Urdu k Sab Rang” and “Urdu Source” are the most famous.

Some websites also came into existence to solve the problems in creating Urdu Blog. Urdu blog could be created by only several clicks on these sites like “Urdu Tech” and “Wordpress PK”. Famous bloggers of today started Urdu blogging on that sites but alas! These sites could not sustain their existence due to lack of resources. Anyway the majority of the bloggers turned to WordPress and Blogspot after the ceasing of these websites. Some of them shifted to their personal websites and the volunteers kept trying to find the solutions of problems related to Urdu blogging during that period. Now this is the time when anyone can create his own Urdu blog easily and raise his voice in the society.

For more detail about Blogosphere of Pakistan in Urdu follow this link.

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Beginning and Brief History of Blogging

We can’t say ultimately about the beginning of Blog and who was the pioneer of Blog. But we have some hint about the beginning of Personal Blogging that was first introduced in 1994. It is probably assumed that an American Justin Hall was one of the first bloggers. He in 1994, started to write Blog during his college days; and Jerry Pournelle‘s name also comes in the pioneer bloggers.

Blog of that time was different in technique and appearance. Blogging of Justin and Jerry was like of personal diary and personal journalism. Blog series was started from that time but it was not called as blog at that time and Blog was not a proper word in lexicon. Actually the term “Weblog” was coined latter on 17 December 1997 by an American blogger Jorn Barger. Afterwards this term was compacted into word Blog by Peter Merholz. It happened in 1999 that Peter broke “Weblog” into “We Blog” in the sidebar of his blog as fun. Thus majority of online diary writers started to use this short form “Blog” instead of Weblog and word “Blog” got familiar from that time.

Latter on the thread of term “Blogger” appears to be linked with Pyra Lab’s “Blogger product” that was started on 23 August 1999, which is provides the service to create blogs. Further the owner of blog also known as Blogger. In 2003 renowned Google has purchased Blogger product that is now called as Blogspot. Earlier there appeared some other services for the sake of Blog creating e.g. Open Diary, SlashDot, Movable Type and famous WordPress. Now-a-days the process of writing a blog is called Blogging. The world of blogs and their interconnections is called Blogosphere. In fact Brad L. Graham coined this term on 10 September 1999 in a funny manner that is used now-a-days. This Blogosphere is now called as “Blogistan” in Urdu language.

As a matter of fact blogging has been started but after the incident of 11 September 2001 it flourished by leaps and bounds. Bloggers started to express their feelings on every significant event and this series is still continue.

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Suggestion for Choosing Blog Service

Here is some discussion about different blogging services and some suggestions, where you should make blog.

Different Blogging Services to create Urdu Blog

•    Free Service
•    Personal Domain Name and Hosting
•    Personal Domain Name and Blogspot.com

To Make Urdu Blog on Free Service

Some companies provide free service to create Blog, like Google’s (blogspot.com). Blogger and Blogspot are the names of a single service. Most probably www.blogspot.com site stands first for free blog service and www.wordpress.com of WordPress organization comes second. Besides these two there are many other sites that provide free service for blogging but these two are the most prominent. Because of some facilities Blogspot is comparatively better than WordPress, and the most convenient way of creating one’s own blog.

To Make Urdu Blog on Personal Domain Name and Hosting

Address of website i.e. domain name and hosting are same as the address of a house. Domain name is “address” and hosting is “house”. When someone is willing to go one’s house, he gets address first of all, and this address leads man to the required house. Similarly, when someone writes Domain name in the web browser, this Domain name leads him to that particular house (hosting). Hosting is the main place which has the matter of the website.
In this method you buy the domain of your own name like I have bought mbilalm.com then you have to purchase webhosting. It is same as to make other websites. After getting domain name and hosting you install WordPress, then blog is ready. WordPress organization provides you “wordpress CMS” free of cost to create blog on your personal hosting.

CMS stands for “Content management system”. This CMS is the most renowned CMS as far as blogging is concerned. You can call it web software that is installed on website. And after some slight changes your website is ready. Keep in mind WordPress provides facility of creating your own blog on www.wordpress.com and provides CMS to make blog on personal domain and hosting. Name of this CMS is WORDPRESS. Keep in mind ‘Wordpress CMS’ and ‘Wordpress.com’ are two different things. Often people do not be able to distinguish the difference between these two because of resembling name.

To Make Blog with Personal Domain and Hosting on Blogspot.com

In this method, only Domain name is to purchase and Hosting of Google’s Blogspot is used. Let suppose if I have to use the hosting of Blogspot for my own domain (mbilalm.com), then I have to do some changes in the control panel of my domain name e.g. I have to give the name of hosting server of Blogspot in A-records and CNAME. Similarly I have to include Custom Domain in the settings after creating Blog on Blogspot. In fact through this process Domain is connected to Hosting and Hosting is connected to Domain. After this Blog is controlled via Blogspot, while Blog opens with personal domain i.e. domain name appears in the browser but blogspot is running on the back end.

My Suggestion for choosing Blog Service

•    If you are not a technical person and don’t have technical information about websites, then you should prefer Blogspot to create blog and find a suitable Urdu template and upload it.

•    If you have a little information about websites, then purchase your own personal domain and use hosting of Blogspot.

•    If you have enough information about website, then buy the domain name and hosting and create your own blog.

•    If you are not well informed with technical information about website but have interest in personal domain, then spend money and ask a web designer to set your blog up. After it, take care of your blog yourself. If you are not willing to take care of your blog yourself, then hire a web designer’s services for this purpose of maintenance of your sit. You can place your order of creating personal blog to companies or web designers, they can make your blog but you have to write your articles of your blog yourself. A web designer will only co-operate you in technical process of issuance of article on the blog.

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How to create Urdu Blog

Now-a-days blogging is famous all around the world. Blog is like the personal diary that is written for internet. Blog is basically the other name of website in which people write down their thoughts, experiences, and information. If you would like to make the world listen your voice, then blogging is the best option.

It is easy to start/create a blog and also very easy to create blog in Urdu language (URDU Blog). It does not want skill and training, in simple words you can say that it is a child’s play now-a-days. You can even make of your own blog by free services. The other way is personal domain name and hosting by spending some money. If you already have a website, then you can make blog on it; or on the sub domain of that site. Here are some steps of how to make Urdu blog, given below.

STEPS FOR URDU BLOG:

•    Make the computer able to write Urdu.
•    Choose the blogging service and to set the blog up.
•    Set the theme/template to show Urdu clear.

Make the computer able to write Urdu

Pak Urdu Installer is used to read and write Urdu clearly in the computers of windows operating system. All the information, about how to install Pak Urdu Installer and how to write Urdu by using Pak Urdu Installer, you can find in this link. The information, besides windows i.e. other operating systems like mobile or tablet, you can find in this link.

Choose the blogging service and to set the blog up

To create the Urdu blog we have to select blogging service first. Many companies provide free facility of blog making e.g. Google’s Blogspot. There are many other companies that provide such facility like Word press etc. Blog can be generated on your own website by spending some amount, on the personal domain and hosting instead of free blogging service. You can find the detail of Blogging service and Blog setup in this link.

Set the theme/template to show Urdu clear

Theme and template are the chips of the same block. Because WordPress users call it theme and Blogspot users call it template. When the blog is setup, then an appropriate Urdu theme/template is selected so that Urdu might be seen clearly. Theme/template can be said the design of the blog. As there is design of website as it is we have design of blog. In fact blog is one of the types of website.