Brad L. Graham, the gay blogger who coined the word "blogosphere" as a joke, has passed away in his St. Louis home. Graham was 41. The time and cause of death is still unknown, but police have indicated that he died of natural causes.

In a 1999 post about the term "weblog" being shortened to "blog," Graham put out some predictions for how the word "blog" would evolve further:

Where are we headed? Will personal publishing soon be described as being "as simple as falling off a blog"? Shall we see ultra-conservative gays start weblogs and dub themselves Blog Cabin Republicans? Track the tides with an Ebb Blog? Is blog- (or -blog) poised to become the prefix/suffix of the next century? Will we soon suffer from (and tire of) blogorreah? Despite its whimsical provenance, it's an awkward, homely little word.

Goodbye, cyberspace! Hello, blogiverse! Blogosphere? Blogmos? (Carl Sagan: "Imagine billions and billions and billions of blogs.")

The term resembles the older word "logosphere" (from Greek logos meaning "word", and sphere, interpreted as "world") - "the world of words", the universe of discourse. Graham was one of the first gay bloggers.