One thing that is quite interesting about this phenomenon is that the "history" of blogging is so variable.  Rebecca Blood, a fairly well-known commentatory on net stuff, traces the beginnings of blogging to Jesse James Garrett, editor of Infosift.  As the story goes, Garrett, "began compiling a list of 'other sites like his' as he found them in his travels around the web. In November of that year, he sent that list to Cameron Barrett. Cameron published the list on Camworld, and others maintaining similar sites began sending their URLs to him for inclusion on the list. Jesse's 'page of only weblogs' lists the 23 known to be in existence at the beginning of 1999."  Take a look at Blood's history of blogging:  http://www.rebeccablood.net/essays/weblog_history.html

Others trace the origins of blogging to the pioneer of the world wide web, Tim Berners-Lee in the early 1990s.  The time line of blog development then is much longer than that traced by Blood.  According to Dave Winer, "Netscape's What's New page was the big blog in the sky in 1993-96. Then all hell broke loose. The Web exploded, and the weblog idea grew along with it.

Other early weblogs include Robot Wisdom, Tomalak's Realm and CamWorld."  Given Winer's rendition, end of the beginning of blogging is the beginning in Rebecca Blood's account.  To extend the historical landscape, see Winer's version: http://oldweblogscomblog.scripting.com/historyOfWeblogs