Blogs: Blogging Communities and Building Them

Blogging communities or blogosphere refers to a ‘collective community of several blogs’ (Webbusinesswiz 2009). These societies as described by White (2006) signify the technological act of joining; whereby people all around the world who share the same interest, find each other and communicate via blog sites. Over a short span of time, these blog communities have expanded greatly; so much so that it forms close knit relationships with among people who have never even met each other.


Caption: Blogging Community (ewriting.pamil-visions.com)

How to Build a Blog Community?

Comments:
Unlike traditional media formats such as newspapers and magazine, blogs enable reader to actively post comments. For instance, Somer (2009) discusses the attitude of a blogging community site known as Joe User, which focuses on individuals’ personal issues; ‘when one person has something important happen to them in their life, up to 100 or more comments will arrive under their blog entry with advice and information as well as emotional support from their blogging friends.’

Tags:
Like page markers for a book, tags are online links that help readers to search and detect for blog postings of a certain topic.

Listing in Online Directories:
Blog Malaysia .com is an online blog directory for Malaysian bloggers. A good way to build a blog community is by listing a blog under such directories as it features and advertises the blog to others, providing specific details such as percentage of blog popularity and description of blog genre.

Some Types of Blogging Communities:

Gaming: http://dotamatters.blogspot.com/ A blog about the very popular Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne custom map, Defense of the Ancients (Dota).

Health:http://alcoholism-alifesentence.blogspot.com/ A blog providing tips on surviving alcoholism and depression.

Travel: http://pureglutton.blogspot.com/A blog on the best places to eat around Malaysia.

Case Study of a Blogging Community in Malaysia:
One of the most popular blogging communities in Malaysia is the blog of former Malaysian Prime Minister, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, known as Che Det http://chedet.co.cc/chedetblog/
With currently 24,972,819 viewers to date, this blogging community revolves around the citizens of Malaysia who actively participate by sharing their thoughts on the political environment as well as the governmental issues affecting them, with the former minister via comments and votes on blog polls.


References:
Blog Malaysia 2008, blogmalaysia, viewed 18 November 2009, <http://blogmalaysia.com/>

Blogging Communities for the Blogging Enthusiast, 2009, webbusinesswiz, viewed 18 November 2009, <http://www.webbusinesswiz.com/blogging/blogging-communities-for-the-blogging-enthusiast/>

Somer, J 2009, Blogging Communities Turn Faceless Strangers into Close Friends, Dovada.net, Australia, viewed 18 November 2009, <http://www.blogging.dovada.net.au/13429.php>

White, N 2006, Blogs and community: launching a new paradigm for online community?, Creative Commons, San Francisco, USA, viewed 18 November 2009, <http://kt.flexiblelearning.net.au/wp-content/uploads/2006/12/white.pdf>

Blogs: Classification Systems and Styles

Caption: Blog Taxonomy (democraticunderground.com)


In the current world of colossal technological advancements and developments, anything and everything we can think of no longer requires taxing hours of searching as it is all within a click of the mouse. However, we are faced with the issue of having too much of resources and access; hence, information overload. This is when blogs come to the rescue. Due to its nature of niche audience, blogs narrow down their topics to cater to very specific publics; this enables viewers to filter the content easily and inspect sites that are related their subject matter only. (Democratic Underground.com 2006)

Blog taxonomy refers to the classification of blogs; besides assisting readers, the categorization of blogs helps bloggers increase ‘site traffic and repeat visitors significantly’ Examples of blog taxonomy: filter-style and free-style

Filter-Style:
The focus of such blogs are ‘linking to sites and/or articles that the author finds worthwhile for his or her readers’ (Wang 1999) Such sites act as guides for users to access other sources and websites. Simons (2008) classifies these blogs under the term ‘The Digest Blog’ Example: Veena’s Food Blog with Recipes: http://detailedrecipesformytweetsizere.blogspot.com/

Free-Style:
These blogs narrow its focus towards the ‘internal world of the blog author’ (Ozawa 2001) From angst fueled teenage diaries to random daily rambling; such blogs give an insight to readers about the author’s daily life and personality. Simons (2008) describes these blogs as ‘The Diary Blog’ whereby its genre is ‘intended for the friends and family of bloggers; as they contain news, photos and information of a largely personal kind.’ Example: Zara-Fied: http://melizahoney90.blogspot.com/

Other examples of blog classifications, according to Simons (2008):

• The Pamphleteering Blog
• The Digest Blog
• The Advocacy Blog
• The Popular Mechanics Blog
• The Exhibition Blog
• The Gatewater Blog
• The Diary Blog
• The Advertisement Blog
• The News Blog

Examples of other blog categories:

By media type:
Vlogs (video based blogs) Youtube.com
Photolog (photograph based blogs) Fotolog.com
Tumblelogs (mixed media based) Tumblr.com

By device:
Moblog (blogging via mobile phones) Twitter.com

By status of publishers:
Corporate Blogs: Official Google Blog http://googleblog.blogspot.com/
Business Blogs: Malaysia Finance http://malaysiafinance.blogspot.com/

By subject matter:
Shopping: http://www.emmagem.com/
Travel: http://travelpangs.blogspot.com/
Beauty: http://losefathow.blogspot.com/

In my opinion, the best way of classifying blogs are through its subject matter and its popularity. As blogs of all genre are written by various individuals of different demographics (gender, location, education background), specified blog topics and high popularity statistics can help determine if the weblog is worth reading.

References:

Blog taxonomy in a nutshell. The importance of tags and categories 2006, Democratic Underground, viewed 18 November 2009, <http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1657266>

Simons, M 2008, Towards a taxonomy of blogs, Australian Policy Online, Swinburne University of Technology, viewed 18 November 2009, <http://www.apo.org.au/commentary/towards-taxonomy-blogs-0>

Wang, A 1999, Online Digests Help Readers Cope With Information Avalanche. The New York Times On the Web, viewed 18 November 2009, <http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/08/biztech/articles/02link.htm>

Ozawa, KR 2001, Journal vs. weblog, Diarist.net, viewed 18 November 2009, <http://www.diarist.net/guide/blogjournal.shtml>

Blogs: Current Phenomenon and Benefits to Society

Caption: Bloggers: Yesterday, Today and Tommorow (emarketer.com)

The days of waiting anxiously for the 8p.m news are over; today with just a click of the mouse, no matter when and where (provided there is Internet access) we have full access to and overwhelming amount information at the rapid speed. As the Centre for Social Media (2009) discusses, users are no longer mere passive audiences who wait for information to be served, instead they are hungry for news and actively participate in seeking and sharing content. Hence, we put aside our newspapers and welcome the blogging phenomena.

Statistics:
Technorati.com search engine indexed nearly nine million blogs around the world to date. (Thurman, 2008)

Ministry of Information, Communication and Culture (2009) indicate some 17,000 Malaysians operate blogs


Blogging Benefits

Politic:
A significant example would be the ‘Blogger turn Member of Parliament’ Jeff Ooi (http://www.jeffooi.com/) who pioneered e-community in 1999 (www.usj.com.my) and social-political blogging in Malaysia in 2003 and was democratically elected as the Member of Parliament for Jelutong, Penang in the recent 2008 General Elections. (Asian Correspondent, 2009)

Social:
Food Blogs are especially popular in Malaysia; as we serve up a diverse and multi cultural platter of delicacies that is not found anywhere else in the world. Promoting even dilapidated hawker stalls in corners of the cities, bloggers shed light on the best places for good food and ambience; their reviews are blatantly honest and gives readers a better insight on the restaurant as compared to the usually analysis from food critics.

Business:
The latest trend in raising quick money for youths are online fashion boutiques generated through blogs. Such sites post photos of outfits and detailed descriptions that allow users to decide and mail order their purchases. Shopping for clothes can now be done without spending hours walking through shopping malls. For example, this is a fashion blog generated by a fellow college student of mine: http://www.thekookything.blogspot.com/

Advertising:
Promoting events are now much cheaper and easier through blogs. Event managers can now advertise and update people about their events as well as reach out to the community for vendors and spectators; without paying exorbitant advertising rates. For instance: SOC Media Carnival by Taylors College Students blog

Caption: SOC Media Carnival.com


References:
Emarketer US Blogger Statistics 2008-2013 2009, PSFK.com, viewed 18 November 2009, <http://www.psfk.com/2009/10/emarketer-us-blogger-statistics-2008-2013.html>

Siaraf K 2009, Shaping a modern society, The Star Online, viewed 18 November 2009, <http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/11/14/focus/5095356&sec=focus>

Centre for Social Media, 2009, Public Media 2.0: Dynamic Engaged Publics, (Audferheide, P, Director), Centre of Social Media, Washington, DC

Thurman, N 2008, ‘Forums for citizen journalists? Adoption of user generated content initiatives by online news media’, New Media & Society, vol.10, no.1, pp.139-157

Asian Correspondent 2009, asiancorrespondent, viewed 18 November 2009, <http://asiancorrespondent.com/jeff-ooi-blog?profile=1>

Document Design: Principles and Techniques

The design of a document is of great importance as with one look at document, reader’s will judge and form an impression to decide to continue reading of worth a second look; as Schriver (1997) suggests, the typography of a document can influence a readers perception of the content and help them engage with the subject matter. Therefore, document designers ‘need to be aware of the meaning-making processes’ Kress & van Leeuwen (2006) in order to create an effective, comprehensible and reader-friendly document. For this reason, document designers should study their target audience carefully in order to cater to their demands.

Penman (1998) asserts “documents need to be structured to accommodate these two quiet different reading habits” referring to “flippers” those fan the pages in search of something that will capture their eye and the more structured readers who read from the top to bottom of the page. Document designers can group the important information in the text in bullet form as well as bold key points, to help the reader sift through the document’s content.

Besides that, document designers should also apply a sense of diversity of elements when producing a document; they should use text and images to maximise readers’ understanding. As according to Kress & van Leeuwen (2006, p. 19) society today has become more visual literate. Walsh (2006) states that images are used in the feature to improve reader’s aesthetic and imaginative; this is also affirmed by Shriver (1997) who states that ‘Pictures arouse the reader’s interest and curiosity and are often well remembered even long after people see them.’ thus, it is essential to include images that capture readers’ attention.

Concurrently, document designers should also be wary when incorporating images. Schirato & Yell (2000) states that, meaning is made as members of a particular culture, society, social grouping or community as agreed to. The demographic profile of the target audience is significant when a document is being generated. For example, in Malaysia, document designers should be careful when using controversial images that can ignite racial tension among the multicultural society.

My group presentation was based on the reading “The Textual Shift: Examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts” by Maureen Walsh. We incorporated proper document design elements into our presentation such as colours and appropriate font sizes.

In order to enhance viewer’s understanding as well as to capture their attention, we used images in our slides.




We also arranged the vital details of our presentation in bold text and grouped them in bullet form.

References:

Kress, G. & van Leeuwen, T. 2006. Reading images. Chapter 1: The semiotic landscape: language and visual communication.

Penman, R 1998, ‘Document structures and readers’ habits’, Communication News, vol.11, no.2, pp. 1 & 10-11.

Schirato, T. & Yell, S. 2000, Communication as Social Practice, Allen & Unwin, Australia

Schriver, K.A. 1997, Chapter 6 in Dynamics in document design: creating text for readers, Wiley Computer Pub, New York

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

Purpose of Serious Weblog

The objective of this weblog is to underline the various issues of publication and design. Through the application of the right publication and design methods, a good document will be created; communicating efficiently and effectively with the appropriate target audience.

The target audience of this serious weblog are document designers and students as well as those who are passionate in the field of publication and design.