Tedra Osell, a professor of English literature at the University of Guelph tracks the blogging phenomena back to the 1700s when the likes of Jonathan Swift, Daniel Defoe, and Samuel Johnson self-published one-page periodicals to be read aloud in coffee shops and public spaces. The styles varied but the overall theme provides good guidance to bloggers today looking to spice up their content:

"Either way, there's always a sense of humour," Osell said. "This isn't philosophy, isn't book writing. It's meant to be entertaining and needs to be like a newspaper today, needs to grab a reader."

Read all about it in the Montreal Gazette