Blog' Was the Word of the Year in 2004'Blog' Was the Word of the Year in 2004In February 2005, WordPress 1.5 was released and themes were introduced.
February 2005: YouTube was launched
With the growth of video blogging, YouTube was hit post launched in February 2005, making it much easier for users to upload video content to the Internet.
Blog content creation began to gain credibility in the mid-2000s. In March 2005, Garrett Graff became the first blogger to receive a White House press pass.
The Huffington Post was launched in May 2005, the popular tech blog TechCrunch in June 2005, and Mashable a month later.
August 2005: Automattic is founded
In August 2005, blogging continued to evolve when WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg founded a new company, Automattic. The following year, a new blog hosting service called WordPress.com was launched.
This allowed you to create a WordPress blog for free, but without the advanced features of self-hosted WordPress. You could purchase additional options such as a custom domain name , additional storage space, and other premium services.