Tracing the first official U.S. military blogs
So yesterday on Twitter I asked a question: when was the first official U.S. military blog started?
Of course, long gone are the days when blogs were an unknown quantity, and these days blogs by U.S. soldiers will usually be signed off by a superior meaning they are to some degree ‘official’ but I wasn’t after these individual soldier blogs.
By ‘official’ I meant blogs that were started as deliberate public affairs exercises on behalf of a branch of the services, or individual units as the corporate, the professional, the governmental, the NGO and the military began colonising the blogosphere.
Nobody seemed sure but people like @LindyKyzer, @fieldsteven, @salottimc and @milblogging (who also wrote a blog post about it) pointed me in the direction of various pieces of information or other people I might ask.
Using their information and some link-hopping, what appears below is a list by start of date of official U.S. military blogs.
I have no doubt that it is a far from comprehensive list so if you have any to add or reckon I’ve got the date wrong let me know. I’m aware that some blogs might have been disbanded or restarted.
I’m not sure I can yet conclusively answer the question I posed but I’m further forward.
It has been an interesting exercise. For some reason (and I’m not sure why) I was under the impression that the U.S. military had been officially blogging for longer than it actually has.
Initially the strategy of the Department of Defense’s New Media Directorate, set up in October 2006, was to work with and engage bloggers rather than start their own blogs.
(Although @Wodins suggested that official military blogging might have been taking place on ARPANET way before the Internet.)
Official U.S. Military Blogs by Start Date
2004-5
DoD news article suggests a blog written by Capt Steve Alvarez for Orlando Sentinel as part of his official duties in Iraq was "first official U.S. military blog". (Here is a taster…it appears to be no different from any online article).
2006
October – Department of Defense New Media Directorate established; For the Record (Pseudo-blog: see this written by Steven Field for discussion of whether this is a blog)*
2007
October – Bloggers’ Roundtable
2008
Updates: This post has been updated on several occasions to include several other blogs missing from the original post in response to comments and emails.