Blogs as current phenomenon & benefits of blogging to the community

In today’s world blogging has become such a phenomenon. People around the world write about their thoughts, share experience and express feelings perhaps, basically they blogging about a little bit of everything. “Blogging is one of the newest ways how people interact with each other” (Hubpages.com). Blogging has also come into the business world, as proof people use blogs to write about their work and interact with other people around the world without taking a long time to communicate with each other.

“The leading blog search engine and directory, from the blogosphere in 2004 until 2009, growing of new blog creations are getting higher every year” (Technorati.com,). This means that the blogging phenomenon is increasing very fast and state of blogosphere is strong. Survey from Technorati in 2009, politics also has been influence by this phenomenon. For example, they campaigning their campaign mostly through blogs.

According to Utusan Malaysia, Malaysia is one of the highest ranking of blogging in the world after Indonesia and the European Union. It’s reported that there are around 500,000 actives bloggers in Malaysia by 2008 (The Star Online 2008).

Most bloggers basically blog about the personal life and others blog to make personal brand. Other than that, blogging is a one way to share ideas. People around the world can get different information through blogs and also communicate with other people. This shows we, ourselves help to solve problems with each other. Basically they give comments to share their idea.

Reference List:

1. Hubpages 2011, Blogging Phenomenon, viewed 5^th of May 2011, <http://hubpages.com/hub/Blogging-Phenomenon>.

2. The Star Online 2008, Blogging in Malaysia ranks among highest in the world, viewed 5^th of May 2011, <http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/4/3/nation/20827588&sec=nation>.

3. Joel, M 2008, 15 Reasons Why Blogging Matters More Than Ever, Twist Image, viewed 5^th of May 2011, <http://www.twistimage.com/blog/archives/15-reasons-why-blogging-matters-more-than-ever/>.

4. McLean, J 2009, State of the Blogosphere 2009 Introduction, Technorati, viewed 5^th of May 2011, <http://technorati.com/blogging/article/state-of-the-blogosphere-2009-introduction/>

Classification of blogs and opinion about the most appropriate classification approach

There have been an upcoming alternative media such as weblogs. Basically, bloggers can blog about anything and everything they want to; therefore, that is why how many different types of blogs and classifying the blogs are at time.

I think blog is much more personal which basically blogs about the blogger’s life are. Basically it’s all about what they do everyday and the rest as non-personal blog (corporate, governmental, political and others). Blogs categorized into 6 types, diary, coaching, government, political, journalism and marketing (Smich, 2010). She said that blog is straight forward and easy to understand, breaking down what I categorize as non-personal to more specific categories.

Chetti (2011) categorizes blogs by genre, media types or devise. Chetti’s classification is valid but too detailed in dividing. “Margaret Simmons argues that it is necessary for a new vocabulary to interned-based publications for the term ‘blog’ is manifestly inadequate” (Funnel 2008).

She stated there are nine classifications, and they are pamphleteering blogs (an individual or a group of individuals arguing a point or strong point of view), digest blogs (summary or collection of materials of elsewhere), advocacy blogs (group or organization pushing a particular point of view), popular Mechanics blog (“how to” blogs), exhibition blog (vanity publishing), gatewatcher blog (meant to keep an eye on the media), diary, advertisement, news blog

Basically Simmons classification is more detail and has lot similarities with Smich’s approach, where media type and device is disregarded. This just makes classification easier and more exact for the audience for what matter most is the content rather than how it is delivered.

Reference

Chettri, S 2011, ‘What is Blogging? What Are The Different Types of Blogs?,’ NetChunks, 5 March, viewed 4th of May 2011, <http://www.netchunks.com/different-types-of-blogs/>.

Smich, M 2010, ‘Different Types of Blogs,’ myhosting, 20 April, viewed 4th of May, 2011 2011, <http://myhosting.com/blog/2010/04/types-blogs-3/>.

Funnel, A 2008, A taxonomy of blogs, The Media Report, ABC Radio National, viewed 4th of May 2011, <http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2008/2372882.htm#transcript>.

Types of Blogging Communities and Methods to build Blogging Communities

Blogging community is about the people who discussing related topic under the same blog (White,2007). It is a more like a group meeting but doing it online by gives comments to the particular blog.

 

The blog must have a permalink in order to let the community to enter the blog or link directly in order to create a blogging community. Bloggers are looking for updates when posting latest information or news by just looking at the label or title. Therefore, the user need to create a comment box for the bloggers or viewers to comments, feedback or even gives good suggestions. This however makes the provider and the viewers communicate indirectly with each other while discussing the topic.

There are three types of blogging communities and they are blog centric, topic centric and also community centric. (White, 2007). Blog centric is usually formed by one blogger, and usually interact with viewers through comments box. Topics are moving with the blogger not community, and community will disappear without blogger.

 

Topic centric is no central repository of conversation, and to find community in no central location. Links are basically are made through both the content and through relationships, and also through other social content sharing tools.

The final types is that community centric is actually profile and login provide a clear identity, an entry point, and emphasizes the boundary of the community. It is actually focusing on ongoing interactions betweens members and norms and agreements across the community are emphasized over individual control.

Reference
White, N., 2007, Blogs and communities Part 1-5, viewed 5thof May, 2011,
http://www.wdil.org/resources/blogs-and-community-parts-1-5

New Media of Publishing

Nowadays facebook, twitter and online newspaper are becoming much popular than buying newspaper everyday or buy magazine ever month. It is one of those new forms of media publishing, but it also can be challenging the roles of traditional journalism.

In the cyber world, news is being provided by the users for users. We call this theory of produsage. (Snurb 2007). Example is like blog or Wikipedia. These types of media are easier for the users to gain any kind of information regarding of anything.

Online newspaper and blogs sites are being used to enrich experience reading news as it is a multimodal text compared to the traditional print-based text. Multimodal text extends the readers senses to movement and sound (Walsh 2006). Readers not only can view the written text but then, they also can view such as videos of documentary or interviews through the internet sites. This will only make their reading skill or experience more exciting and interactive. Walsh support the statement by states that “a reader can choose different pathways depending on their interest”, therefore it means that, the readers can choose either reading from the internet or from the newspaper or magazine itself.

One of the strongest challenged the traditional journalism is twitter. Twitter has open doors to a whole new form of publishing. “Twitter has been used at ReadWriteWeb for discovery of breaking stories, performing interviews, quality assurance and promotions of their work”, Kirkpatrick (2008). In today’s world, twitter has played the roles of traditional journalism, because twitter has been focusing on reporting of the breaking news and also sometimes interviews.

Media publishing is changing trough time and through new environment around the world. Therefore traditional journalism is facing a transformation.

References

Kirkpatrick, M 2008, How we use Twitter for journalism, ReadWriteWeb, viewed 23 April 2011, <http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/twitter_for_journalists.php>.

Snurb 2007, ‘Welcome to Produsage.org,’ produsage, 28 December, viewed 23 April 2011, <http://produsage.org/>.

Walsh, M 2006, “ The ‘textual shift’: Examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts,” Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 24-37.

Good Powerpoint Presentation

Audiences or readers attraction is important matter to take note when designing a webpage or presentation. Reep (2006) says that “writes that there are purposes to why design is important; for design can increase interests of the reader, directing texts so that readers remember the more important information and a design that reflects its designer.”

The pictures below show 2 different ways of presenting. 

These 2 slides basically have different design; one is in white color background and another one is in blue color background. Both also have different type of title of the slide. The first slide basically talks about the 2009 plan. It is presented in bullets and also a bit explanation. The second slide is talks about protecting America’s workforce and it is presented in bullets only. In my own opinion both are really interesting slides, but then they have pro and cons. Example in slide 1, basically the audiences can read from the slide. This way they can get the info right away without need the speaker to actually explain it. This way also makes the audience much clearer on what the speaker talks about. Slide no 2 basically in bullets only, therefore the audience need to wait for the speaker to explain to get the information. This way it makes the audiences focus more on the speaker when they presenting.

“Colors play an important role in designing a document”, Reep (2006). By it means here that color can highlight important points. Slide no 1 is in white color, it can be boring to anyone while slide no 2 can take the audience attention by presenting in different color beside white. Sometimes, if the color to heavy, then it makes the audiences hard to read. Therefore, choose the color wisely. 

~zuri~

References

Reep, Diana C. 2006, ‘Chp 4: Principles of Document Design,’ in Technical Writing, 6th ed., Pearson Edu, Inc., New York, p.173-190.

Issues in Publication and Design.

The way I look at articles as well as web pages has changed since I learn Issues in Publication and Design.  They are sometimes randomly arranged to make it interesting to the readers. Design and layouts also help to attract the readers. This subject is interesting to learn although we never aware of how it is important to design the article. All in all IPD is interesting to learn for those who is really interested in designing a web page or magazine.

~Zuhri~