Blogging issues

Blogs as current phenomenon

Blogging has become a recent occurrence that almost 8 out of 10 of my friends have a blog of their own. According to Sifri:
- there are almost 70 million weblogs currently
- about 120,000 new weblogs are being created worldwide each day
- between 3,000 to 7,000 new splogs (spam blogs) are being created each day.
- About 13. million posting are posted each day
- The growing from 35 million to 75 million blogs took only 320 days
From there, we can see how fast the world of weblogs are growing and how many users are using blogs in their life.


Benefits of blogging to the community

Why do people choose to blog? Blogging allows a certain individual to express and share his or her thoughts or complains to the public, for example news, politics, sports and business (Taylor, D 2007), into words. This helps to reduce their burden and convert their thoughts into words, just like a diary. As blog sites allow its users to choose whether or not to allow the public to read their blogs, their privacy can be kept from the public. Blogging also help corporate to sell or market their products. For example, a boutique that posts their clothes and accessories in the Net which allows their customer to purchase their product online.

Classification of blogs

There are three types of blogs and three classifications to the types. First, we have the personal blogs which is the most common blog. It is an ongoing diary or commentary by an individual. Then, there is the corporate blog that can either be private or used for business purposes. It is used to enhance communication and culture in a corporate or externally for marketing, branding or public relations. The final type of blog is the question blogging whereby it is a blog that answers question. The classification is by media type, by device and by genre. To build a blogging community, lots of people need to sign up in that certain community for it to grow larger. Therefore, people from all around the world could connect and interact with each other. MyBlogLog is an example of a blogging community that is based on interactions facilitated by a popular web widget that members install into their blogs. Members can see basic information such as how many people visited their blog, what links they clicked and where they come from (Wikipedia 2008)


Designing for print vs. designing for online

There are many differences in designing for print and online designs. For starters, print designers have a huge canvas to design in. their designs needs to be striking and yet intricate and have more impact than a web page, especially because the entire one or two page spread need to capture the audience’s attention in two seconds. Print design is 2-dimentional but web designs are simultaneously 1-dimentional and N-dimensional. The N-dimensional aspect of the web designs follows from the hypertext navigation that is the essence of a website. Having the N-dimensional impact, it makes web more memorable and has a stronger impact then seeing alone. In print, navigation mainly consists of page turning meanwhile hypertext navigation requires decisions such as appearance of links, how and where each links will lead, visualization of the user’s current location and information architecture. However, print media is superior to the Web in terms of speed, type and image quality, and the size of visible space. However, this comparison depends on what type of computer the user uses. Print designs is based on letting the eyes walk over the information and selectively looking at information while web design functions by letting the hands move the information by scrolling or clicking. (Nielsen, J 1999)


New forms of Media Publishing

Media convergence is a concept whereby old and new media intersect in such a way that the balance of power between media producers and media consumers shifts in unpredictable ways. In today’s world, the usage of the internet is boundless. The television, radio and newspapers are the worlds main medium in accessing news and entertainment. However, these three mediums have now converged into one through the internet. People now can watch videos and television shows online (Wikipedia, 2008). They can also listen to the radio and read news online. For example, The Star newspaper now has an online website for their readers to read news similar to the ones that are printed. Radio stations such as Fly fm also allow their listeners to listen to their station online. And television shows could also be watched online through YouTube or through an online website created by the television station itself. The internet has become such a convenience and easy to access that almost everyone in the world knows how to access the internet.


References:

Nielsen, J 1999, Difference Between Print Design and Web Design, Alertbox, viewed 13 November 2008,
<http://www.useit.com/alertbox/990124.html>

Sifry, D 2007, The State of the Live Web, April 2007, Technorati, viewed 13 November 2008,
<http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/000493.html>

Taylor, D 2007, Why do people blog, and how many of us are there?, Intuitive Systems, viewed 13 November 2008, <http://www.intuitive.com/blog/why_do_people_blog_how_many_bloggers_are_there.html>

Thinkquest 2006, Types of Blogs, Blogging – the Phenomenon, viewed 13 November 2008,
<http://library.thinkquest.org/05aug/01130/typesofblogs.html>

Wikipedia 2008, MyBlogLog, Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, viewed 13 November 2008,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MyBlogLog>

Wikipedia 2008, Media Convergence, Technological Convergence, viewed 13 November 2008,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_convergence#Media_convergence>