IT MAY not be the most beautiful of words, but "blog" is one of the defining terms of the young century. It can even be found in that bastion of all things establishment, the Oxford English Dictionary.

For anyone reading this and looking mystified so far, bear with us.

Imagine your diary. A personal space where you can record your innermost thoughts. Imagine then that this was open for billions of people to read.

Blogs (from the phrase weblog) began to emerge as soon as the Internet developed. Usually in the form of a basic website, they are a collection of "posts" – or entries – and can concern any subject. They are used for many purposes, from a business marketing tool or to gain political influence, to spreading news or often simply sharing thoughts with a wider audience.

Sounds slightly cheesy or pointless? Consider this: a humble blog in Los Angeles documenting the bitchy world of showbiz turned Perez Hilton into the globally recognised camp king of Tinseltown. He once claimed his self-titled blog had eight million hits in 24 hours.

If Hollywood celebs are not your thing, how about this: when George Bush was reappointed as US president in 2004, the Huffington Post had not even been launched. Yet by the time Barack Obama won in November last year, the blog was one of the most powerful political news sources on the Internet, with all the main contenders courting its approval.

But beyond these global phenomena, blogs have had a profound effect on the lives of people on a much more local level, not least here in the Westcountry. From an insider's view of daily life on a farm or online opinions of local politics to the latest news in surfing and adventure sports circles, the region is well represented in the blogosphere.

Sue Jackson, a freelance journalist and writer in Falmouth, has been writing on her blog Flowerpot Days since May 2006. As a writer, she set it up partly as a way to showcase her work and partly as a way to get her creative juices flowing. And it has proved a success, with readers from across the globe visiting to read her mixture of fact and fiction.

"It was something I wanted to explore for a bit of fun but also as a way to 'loosen up'," she explains. "Around two-thirds of my readers are from the United States. A lot of them come through Google, but others from all over the place."

These people from far-flung places all help create a small community of people who gather virtually to chew the fat by leaving comments on each other's blogs. "If something is bugging me now I can write about it and people come up with suggestions to deal with it," says Sue. "It is a bit like having a chat with people you can't see."

Sally Vincent has run her farm in Dittisham for 27 years. She spends her days rearing rare white-faced Dartmoor sheep, taking care of her donkeys and bantams and encouraging people to buy locally grown food through the Devon Slow Food committee – and then writing about it.

Among her fans are readers from the USA, India, Japan, Mexico and Kuala Lumpur.

Mrs Vincent, 62, is not a professional writer. But in February 2004, she began documenting her life on her blog.

"About four and a half years ago, we cut back on our farming," explains Sally. "I have a son, Tom, who lives in Tokyo and runs a web business. He suggested that I start a blog."

He originally set the blog up, but Sally quickly learnt the simple skills needed to maintain it. Despite musing on farm life in a modern forum, Raining Sideways (named after the horizontal weather that sweeps across Sally's South Devon valley) concerns traditional Westcountry approaches to food and farming. She writes about often forgotten culinary skills, such as how to cook rabbit or cure bacon.

"I just love writing," she says. "I'm never quite sure what will come out until I sit down and do it."

And while the blog has allowed Sally to communicate with a global network of people with similar interests, one of her favourite blogs is written by another farmer in Devon.

Paula Wolton, creator of the Locks Park Farm blog, single-handedly runs an organic farm in Hatherleigh. She was asked to start a blog by the charity and pressure group Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), in May 2007.

She now writes about anything from the Hatherleigh Carnival to the current political climate of farming – and even her husband's new pet slug. She gets around 300 hits every day on her site.

Mrs Walton, who also writes for Devon Today magazine, said: "It's a good medium to be thought-provoking. I suppose a lot of people do it as an online diary, but it can see you become much more confident in your writing."

This is true of Tim Kevan. The trained barrister left the legal profession after working in London for 10 years, relocating to Braunton, North Devon, to write a novel and surf.

He explains: "I wanted to be a writer. Not having done it before, apart from legal journals, blogging was a great soft entry into writing. You don't have to be in any way self-conscious."

The (ex) Barrister Blog helped market his first non-fiction book, Why Lawyers Should Surf, but he now blogs about anything that interests him, from surfing to politics, and hopes his blog will publicise his first novel, to be published by Bloomsbury next year.

For Newton Abbot journalist Lee Morgan, blogging became a profession in itself. The 38-year-old ex-newspaper reporter launched The People's Republic of South Devon in January 2006 to encourage "citizen journalism" in the area.

He takes contributions from local people and has a core of four or five regular contributors who write about art, the environment and current affairs. "We try to avoid stories that are widely covered," he says. "Because of our nature and tone, the stories tend to be a little bit wry."

Dr Andy Phippen, senior computing lecturer at the University of Plymouth, explains: "If a blog reaches a wide audience, it can be extremely influential – there are those that believe Barack Obama's success is down, in part, to the ability of his party to engage with the Internet more effectively than his opponent.

While bloggers in the South West have yet to become "celebrities", they have sparked the interest of global audiences – and people in the local community. From cookery to poetry, motorcycling to cheese-making, or paragliding to the seaside, there is a Westcountry blog out there for everyone.

And if you can't find one, you could always start your own.