Classification of Blogs

- Before we criticize bloggers, let’s define our term – Margaret Simons, 2008

Within the 150 million blogs tracked by BlogPulse.com (2010), there are different styles and contents in each blog, depending on how the author wants the blog to turn out. It is important to clearly state your blog type in order to not confuse the audience. If the audience understands the reference, your blog can catch their attraction to go on with your content (VanFossen, 2007). Blogs can be classified via different element such as subject matter, device or media type.

- Subject matter: Subject matter is the topic of interest chosen by the author to develop the author’s blogging style and content (Westbrook, n.d.). For example:
Politics: Lim Kit Siang

Digital technology: Digital World
Fashion: Viva Fashion Blog

- Device: The emerging of the latest technology devices such as smartphones had combine blogging with them.
For example: Moblog which a blog post can be easily updated through mobile phones (Knudsen, 2003)

- Media type: different media can also used to classified blogs’ categories.For example:
Vlog (Video & Blog): Dhiya Faris
Linklog (Links & Blog): Delicious
Sketchblog (Sketches & Blog): Andrea Jospeh’s Sketchblog
Photoblog (Photo & Blog): Flickr

As mentioned in the quote by Margaret Simons, these internet-based publications need a new vocabulary to classify them (Simons, 2008). Simons (2008) had come out with 9 types of classification of blogs:

Pamphleteering blog
The digest blog
The advocacy blog
The exhibition blog
The gatewatcher blog
The diary
The advertisement
The news blog

During classification of blogs, I’ll look into topic and audience as a border line for me. It is easy to identify a blog’s topic as well as the audience. The topic of the blog is usually closely related to the audience. I can easily identify Malaysia Today as a news blog as all of the blog posts are related to the latest news. Blogs should be classified clearly in order to gain information easily and convenient.

References

1. Knudsen, J 2003, Introduction to mobile blogging, viewed on 29/9/2010, retrieved from http://developers.sun.com/mobility/midp/articles/blogging/

2. Lacy, K 2010, Blogging beyond your subject matter: adding personality, viewed on 29/9/2010, retrieved from http://www.personalbrandingblog.com/blogging-beyond-your-subject-matter-adding-personality/

3. Simons, M 2008, Towards a taxonomy of blogs, viewed on 29/9/2010, retrieved from http://www.apo.org.au/commentary/towards-taxonomy-blogs-0

4. The Media Report 2008, A taxonomy of blogs, viewed on 29/9/2010, retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2008/2372882.htm#transcript

5. VanFossen, L 2007, Are you really writing for your blog audience?, viewed on 29/9/2010, retrieved from http://www.blogherald.com/2007/05/04/are-you-really-writing-for-your-blog-audience/