Phenomenon ll

Classification of blogs

Blogs do not take in one encoded form as blogs are like many other in the World Wide Web as they are quite complicated. According to Wikipedia.org (2008), there are different types of blogs:

1. Personal blogs
2. Corporate blogs
3. Question blogging
4. By Media type
5. By Device
6. By Genre
   

Australian media Analyst Magaret Simon had classified the type of blogs in the transcript interview with ABC.Net.Au (2008). These are the 9 types of list she classified as blog:

1. Pamphleteering blog
2. Digest blog
3. Advocacy blog
4. Popular Mechanics blog
5. Exhibition blog
6. Gatewatcher blog
   
7. Diary blog
8. Advertisement blog
   
9. News blog

In my opinion, I will prefer more to Wikipedia.org(2008) as in the way how they classified their blogs because they not only show the term of content but they do defined the content and make it more understanding. Compare to Simon classification, is more to Australian context which is more difficult for me to understand.

This is how Technorati .com(2008) classified their blog. Based on the site of Technorati.com (2008), they divided their site into six major categories of blogs, they are:

1. Blogs pertaining to entertainment
2. Business
3. Technology
   
4. Politics
5. Lifestyle
6. Sport

The six major categories were made up with more than 40 sub-categories, for example, there are 6 sub-categories under the entertainment category:

1. Celebrity and Gossip
2. Gaming
   
3. Movies and Film
4. Music
5. Television
6. Theater

Community Blogging

Below are the three types of blogging communities:-

Single blog/Blogger Centric Community- Community that occurs around the primary blogger

Central Connecting Topic Community- Community that develops from common passion and interest

Boundaried Community- Community that gathers by registered members of a specific organization

Blogs as a current phenomenon & benefits to the community

Current Phenomenon

Based on Technorati.com (2008), they are currently tracking 112.8 millions of blog all around the world. According to Technorati data, just only blogs has exceeded over 175,000 new blogs every single day. Everyday 1.6 million posts or over 18 update a second by the bloggers who update their blogs regularly.

Today in Malaysia, it becomes a trend to the Malaysian of using the blog as a way to express their opinion and feeling towards the country and also a medium for the political party to get the public attention. In Malaysia, Political blogs are scatter everywhere. Here is some of the famous political blogs in Malaysia:-

1. Lim Kit Siang
2. The Scribe A Kadir Jasin
3. Screenshots
4. Rocky’s Bru
5. Anwar Ibrahim
6. Aisehman.org
7. RantingbyMM
8. Susan Loone

(Fig .1 some of the politicians blog)

As it was proven by the social sciences and social behaviour, that women are far better communicators than men. Surveys show that the blogosphere in Malaysia blogging community, 64% bloggers are to be women while men stand 36%. The majority of bloggers in Malaysia are below 25 years old and the rest are between 25 to 34 years old.

(Microsoft.com, 2006)

Another survey had done by (PRNewswire, 2006), it review that Asia’s blogosphere rising and falling as 46% of the online user are actively blogging. In Asia, Young people and women rule the blogging world except in India: as it is significantly belong to the male and whereby blogging become a part of daily life for the Korean.

(PRNewswire, 2006)

The society in European country, still doubt the usage of blog. For example, Britain has the lowest blog user as survey show that 30% of internet users do not what is blog and most sad is only 10% of the users would actually visit blogs account (Brook, 2006). In Britain, Majority trusted the quality national newspaper follow by news aggregator such as Yahoo and Google. Only 5 % trust the newspaper or individual blog.

(Brook, 2006)

Today blog have created a new era to the world and bringing beneficial to the public. Since the emergence of politician blogs in Malaysia, the people of Malaysia can easily express their feeling and through the politician blog, they could know what the Malaysia Government are doing behind the public, which we hardly seen or heard from the mainstream media as they control the whole media in Malaysia.

Other than that, blogs helps the people to keep up with their friends and family and for other blogs such as business and technological blogs, it help the Malaysian side by side with the latest technology or business update to increase the economic and technology in Malaysia. Artist and actress also use the benefit of blog for their own beneficial for doing free advertisement through blog to promote their latest product.

(Microsot, 2006)

Reference

About us 2008, Technorati.com, viewed 12 November 2008,

<http://technoratimedia.com/about/>

Microsoft.com 2008, Women Rule in Malaysian Blogosphere, viewed 12 November 2008,

<http://www.microsoft.com/malaysia/press/archive2006/linkpage4337.mspx>

PRNewswire.com 2006,Blogging Phenomenon Sweep Asia, viewed 12 November 2008,

<http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/11-28-2006/0004480819&EDATE=>

Brook, S 2006, Blogs struggle to impress in UK, Guardian, viewed 12 November 2008

<http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2006/jun/20/pressandpublishing.newmedia>

Introduction

This is the first time ever in my life to start a blog. As the technology keep improving, I found out that blog has play an important role in the society of every country.

• Purpose of the Blog

This blog is created to provide in-depth discussion and review on Blog itself. It is to show how the blog itself has brought benefits to the society of the world, its current phenomenon and it classification of blogs. I will also review on the new form of media publishing and print design against web design in media world today.

• Audience

First of all, communication students would be my primary audience as Issue in Publication and Design a part of their subject. Therefore they had to know at least a bit of the blog itself and it also targeted to the professional out there.

• Additional information

Recently the election in the State, Barack Obama had won the election. One of the reasons he
won the election was using the new medium “Internet”,

"Mr.Obama’s campaign took advantage of YouTube for free advertising. Mr. Trippi argued that those videos were more effective than television ads because viewers chose to watch them or received them from a friend instead of having their television shows interrupted.”

(New York Times, 2008)

The reason why I choose the blog as a platform for the discussion, it is because the internet, or the World Wide Web offers a ‘complex interplay of written text, images and other graphic or sound elements …’ (Kress & van Leeuwen 2006, p.17).

Reference

-Kress, G & van Leeuwen, T 2006, Reading Images: Grammar of Visual Design, Routledge, London.

-Miller clair.C, 2008,New York Times,“How Obama Internet Campaign Changed Politics”, viewed 11 November 2008,

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/how-obamas-internet-campaign-changed-politics/?scp=2&sq=obama%20using%20internet%20to%20win%20election&st=cse