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/

Current Blogosphere

Blogging does not matter gender, age, and interest boundaries which brought benefits to the field of communication and cultural (SLAC, 2006). Branckaute (2010) stated BlogPulse.com had tracked the current blogosphere which contains almost 150 million blogs worldwide recently. Most of these bloggers are in U.S. (29.22%), followed U.K. (6.75%)and Japan (4.88%) whereas Malaysia (1.7%) had ranked number 14 in the list (Sysomos, 2010).
























Source: Sysomos.com, 2010


According to MSN Survey, blogging in Asia is a current phenomenon which is usually used for self-expression and society connection (Gatoc, 2009). More than half of the respondent from the survey said that the most of the bloggers blog for the purpose to share personal journals and photos but some of them challenged the authorities. Countries such as Hong Kong, Tibet, Thailand, Korea even Malaysia often use blogs as a path to challenge the authorities (Gatoc, 2009).

In Malaysia, Daniel Chandranayagam, an editor of CSR Digest had provided 2 schools of Malaysian blogging which are political and casual (BG, 2010). Chandranayagam also stated that casual bloggers are those who writes their own journal online (usually use Myspace/Blogspot/Friendster) while political bloggers are those who touch on authorities, whether for or against them (BG, 2010). These casual blogs affects the thinking and lifestyles of the society as people often use these blogs to be updated to the latest trends. Political blogs actually create a larger impact which people can voice out their opinions towards the government and receive more information from different parties.

References
1. BG 2010, Can you map the social effect of Malaysia’s Chinese schools?, viewed on 28/9/2010, retrieved from http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2010/03/malaysias_blogosphere

2. Branckaute, F 2010, State of the blogosphere 2010, viewed on 27/9/2010, retrieved from http://www.blogherald.com/2010/09/20/state-of-the-blogosphere-in-2010/

3. Gatoc, L 2009, Blogging in Asia: cases of new media suppression and blogger arrests in the region, viewed on 28/9/2010, retrieved from http://www.suite101.com/content/blogging-in-asia-a94022

4. SLAC 2006, Blogging: cultural phenomenon & practical communication tool, viewed on 27/9/2010, retrieved from http://www-project.slac.stanford.edu/wis/pages/past_seminars/nextseminar67.htm

5. Sysomos 2010, Inside blog demographics, viewed on 28/9/2010, retrieved from http://www.sysomos.com/reports/bloggers/