Blogging communities and methods to build blogging communities

Blogging Community

Blogging community refers to a group of people who interacted online within some bounded set or technologies (White 2006). Blogging community can be created by using tools such as permalink on the blog. Furthermore, blogger can also discuss and comments on the blogs. Tagging is also enabling bloggers to get the latest postings that have been updated. The blogging communities will enhance the interaction between bloggers.

According to White (2006), the main three types of blogging communities are:

• Single Blog/Blogger Centric Community – community that grow around primary bloggers

• Central Connecting Topic Community – community that occur between blogs linked by a common passion or topic

• Boundaried Community – community arises when members register and join the community

An example of the structure of a blogging community

Global Voices community is a blog falls under the category of central connecting topic community (White 2006). According to Globalvoiceonline.org (2010), Global Voices seeks to aggregate, curate, and amplify the global conversation online – shinning light on places and people other media often ignore. It works to develop tools, institutions and relationships that will help all voices, everywhere, to be heard. It’s also providing training, online tutorials, and free open-source tools for people around the world to use.

Topics to discuss through Global Voices

In addition, Global Voices community can discuss among each other by leaving comment as an example circled below.

The comments section that created for discussion

Reference List

Globalvoicesonline.org 2010, Global Voices, viewed 15 April 2010, http://globalvoicesonline.org/

White, N 2006, Blogs and Community – launching a new paradigm for online community?, The Knowledge Tree, viewed 15 April 2010, http://kt.flexiblelearning.net.au/tkt2006/edition-11-editorial/blogs-and-community-%E2%80%93-launching-a-new-paradigm-for-online-community

Classification of blogs

Technology innovation has changed almost everything about how we communicate. Blogging is one of the ways to satisfy human needs. There are few segregate parts of blogs which are by subject matter, device, media type and status of publishers.

During an interview of A taxonomy of Blogs (2008), a media analyst Margaret Simons has defining the different types of blogs that currently exist such as

• Pamphleteering blog
• Digest blog
• Advocacy blog
• Popular mechanics blog
• Exhibition blog
• Gatewatcher blog
• The Diary blog
• The Advertisement blog
• News bog

Subject Matters:

• Politics
• Fashion
• History
• Law
• Technology
• Sport
• Travel
• Food

Media types:

Vlog

Linklog

Sketchlog

Tumblelog

Device:

Moblog

Status of Publishers:

• Corporate and business blogs

In my opinion, although there are classifications of blog but it seems that there are overlapping between one another. For example, Simmons (2008) stated that advocacy blog is like pamphleteering blog. Occasionally, there is a tricky way for people to distinguish which taxonomy the blogs is belonging.

Reference List

Abc.net 2008, The media report: A taxonomy of blogs, 25 September 2008, viewed 15 April 2010, http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2008/2372882.htm#transcript

Makeyougohmm.com 2008, The 8 differet types of blogging, 24 January 2008, viewed in 15 April 2010, http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20080124/5040/

Blogs as current phenomenon and benefits to the community

Blogging Phenomenon

A blog (short for web log) is an area set aside people to write articles that can easily be accessed with a special program called a real simple syndication reader (Veleudos 2010).

The size and trend of current blogosphere

Techonorati (2009) recently reported that the level of blogosphere remain similar to 2008 which is 133 million of blogs record indexed by Techonorati since 2002. The numbers goes up dramatically with 15% of bloggers spend 10 or more hours each week blogging.

Size of the Blogosphere

Weblogs cumulative (2003-2007)

On average, how much time do you spend blogging each week?

Nowadays, people are always expressing their view of political issues through blogs. It has a significant impact on the mainstream media compared to earlier period. Previously, people only tend to share their personal experiences and inspiration to the public but not the political issues. According to Ariani (2008), personal blogs and corporate blogs seem prevalent in Europe, Aisa and Malaysia. Besides, an important trend in 2009 is that 72% of the respondents blog as a hobby (Techonorati 2009).

Which best describes your involvement with blogging?

What are the benefits of blogging?

Blogging are enhancing the communication way by leaving comments and it’s also helping pro and self-employed bloggers to generate revenue from their blog. A seller can advertise a product in order to promote to the bloggers through their blogs without paying any fees to gain revenue. In addition, blogging is also a very good channel for politician to express their political views. For example, one of the blog spots for politician in Malaysia to share their feelings with each other is through mymalaysianpolitics.blogspot.com.

Reference List

Ariani, G 2008, Global village: Blogs as current phenomenon and effects on community, viewed 13 April 2010,

http://geeta-ariani.blogspot.com/2008/04/blogs-as-current-phenomenon-effects-on.html

Technorati 2009, Technorati: State of blogosphere 2009, viewed 13 April 2010,

http://technorati.com/blogging/feature/state-of-the-blogosphere-2009/

Veleudos, S 2010, Internet based moms: Blogging & RSS resources, viewed 13 April 2010,

http://www.internetbasedmoms.com/blogging-rss/blog-definition.html

Purpose

The purpose of creating this blog is to discuss about the issues on publication and document design among each other so that people can understand it better. My target audiences are my fellow classmates, friends from other university and people who are interested on it. Hope that people can gain some extra knowledge by discussing the issues about document design in this blog.