kookaburra
Saturday, November 11, 2006
The Different Kinds of Blogs
When discussing about blogs, most people are not aware that there is great variety of genres, and that homogeneity is unheard of in the blogosphere. Just because the interface looks somewhat similar does not mean that the content is as well. In fact, as the blogging phenomenon exploded, its uses and styles have followed suit every inch of the way. Hence, this section samples just a small flavour of what is out there in the blogosphere.
Political Blogs
When discussed in the news, the term blog is often understood to refer to a "political blog." Political blogs may take a number of forms. Often an individual will link to articles from news web sites and post their own comments as well. Others focus on long essays about current political topics. Most news, activism, and issue-based blogs follow the same format. In fact, a recent trend in politics is that candidates are incorporating blogging into their own campaigns, tying blogs into the world of politics. In fact, in the current 2005 Chilean presidential election, the four candidates are currently using their own blogs as part of their campaign mechanisms.
Personal Blogs
The term personal blogs is often used to describe an online diary or journal, such as Xanga. The weblog format of an online diary makes it possible for users without much experience to create, format, and post entries with ease. People often write their day-to-day experiences, complaints, poems, prose, illicit thoughts and more, allowing others to contribute.
Business Blogs
A number of entrepreneurs are establishing blogs to promote their businesses. Often business blogs act as a showcase for entrepreneurs to provide a window into the behind-the-scenes activities at their business, presenting a more personal "face" to the public rather than a cold corporate persona (Wikipedia, 2005). In some cases the blog itself is the core of the business bringing in revenue from advertising, selling products or information.
Topical Blogs
Topical blogs focus on very particular niche. An example is Google Blog, which covers nothing but news about Google. Another example is a soldier blog, also known as a military blog, or "milblog." Many blogs now allow categories, which means a general blog can be reshuffled to become a topical blog at the user's need.
Health Blogs
Blogs written as personal accounts of living with a specific health issue, sharing information about the experience with others who have an interest in that health issue and providing mutual support. A major category of health blogs are medical blogs, which themselves generally fall into two categories. One type is a blog written by a health care professional about his or her work experiences, medical news or other personal thoughts. A more recent trend is a blog that deals with actual patient cases. This latter blog allows other physicians to submit cases to the web site. Physicians can then offer comments or help with the case.
Literary Blogs
A "litblog" as it is sometimes called, is a blog that focuses primarily on the topic of literature. There is a community of litblogs in the blogosphere whose authors cover a variety of subtopics within the realm of literary matters. Litbloggers write about the publishing industry, writing, current fiction, poetry, literary journals, reader's diaries, criticism and genres of literature, including science fiction and mystery, just to name a few.
Travel Blogs
Famous explorers wrote their journeys down on paper. Blogging has opened the forum for everyone, thus allowing modern-day travelers with blogs as a way to share their stories and photos, even while they are traveling around the world.
Research Blogs
An increasing number of scholars and students blog their research notes, combining the traditional scholar's private notebook with public discussion. A related genre is the anonymous professor's blog, where the various issues related to academia are freely discussed.
Legal Blawgs
Blogs by lawyers or law students, which discuss law and legal affairs are often referred to as "blawgs." By extension, the creator of such a blog is a blawger, sometimes spelled blawgger. In fact, legal scholars and celebrities such as Denise Howell and Richard Posner post legal commentaries and case analyses on their own blogs.
Educational Blogs
Students often use blogs as records of their learning while teachers use them as records of what they taught. For example, a teacher can blog a course, recording day-by-day what was taught, including links to internet resources, and specifying what homework students are required to carry out. This application has many advantages: (1) a student can quickly catch-up if they miss a class; (2) the teacher can use the blog as a course plan; and (3) the blog serves as an accurate summary of the course that prospective students or new teachers can refer to.
Collaborative
The collaborative features of blogs can be used to permit several students to contribute to the blog. One excellent example is Justin Hall’s course blog. (Hall is regarded as one of the earliest pioneers of blogging).However, these are but a sample of the blogs that are being used by the online community. There almost a countless, unimaginable variety of other blogs waiting to be read. Forbes Magazine has recently compiled a top-ten list rankings of the best blogs according to different blogging categories.
Thoughtful
Where a personal weblog is primarily concerned with daily life and events, and many topical weblogs focus on some technical topic, weblogs in the "thoughtful" category present an individual's (or a small group's) thoughts on whatever subject comes to hand; not necessarily the latest computer technology or the latest political scandal, but typically less contingent and more philosophical subjects. Thoughtful weblogs of course blur into personal weblogs on one side and topical or political ones on the other, but are distinct enough to constitute a category of their own.
FriendBlog
A FriendBlog is a distributed networked journal on the web, composed of short, frequently updated posts written by friends connected through their similar interests. The author allows his FriendBlog to connect to other FriendBlogs, belonging to friends and acquaintances. This creates a "chain" of blogs.
News
Many weblogs provide a news digest on a certain topic, e.g., Internet in China , baseball, or music with short abstracts/summaries and links to interesting articles in the press. Collaborative (also collective or group) Many weblogs are written by more than one person about a specific topic. Collaborative weblogs can be open to everyone or limited to a group of people. MetaFilter is an example of this type of weblog. Slashdot, whose status as a blog has been debated, nevertheless has a team of editors who approve and post links to technology news stories throughout the day. Although Slashdot does not refer to itself as a weblog, it shares some characteristics with weblogs. A new form of blog involves cooperation between bloggers and traditional media sources, allowing for topics discussed on the air to find legs on the Web, and vice-versa. The first and most prominent example of this form is Lone Star Times.
Legal
Blogs that discuss law and legal affairs are often referred to as blawgs.
Directory
Directory weblogs are useful for web-surfers because they often collect numerous web sites with interesting content in an easy to use and constantly updated format. News-related weblogs can fall into this category or the previous one (political blogs).
Media
Some blogs serve as media watchdogs, reporting on falsehoods or inconsistencies that are presented as facts in the mass media. Many media blogs are focused exclusively on one newspaper or television network.
Corporate
Increasingly, employees of corporations are posting official or semi-official blogs about their work. The employers however, do not always appreciate the endeavor. In January 2005 Joe Gordon was fired from Waterstone's bookshop in Edinburgh, Scotland, because he referred to his boss as an "asshole in sandals." In 2004 Ellen Simonetti, a Delta Air Lines flight attendant, was fired for posing in uniform on her blog. Perhaps the most famous case of all occurred when "Troutgirl" Joyce Park was fired from Friendster because she discussed the rationale behind the website's technology conversion from J2EE to PHP on her blog. Other employers have reacted differently. For instance, when Power Line bloggers were attacked by a Minneapolis Star Tribune columnist, one of the bloggers' employers came to his defense. With the rise in popularity of blogs in 2004 senior management caught on to the trend and by January 2005 several types of organizations, including universities, had started using blogs to communicate with their stakeholders. Many believe this corporate takeover of a tool that was used primarily by Internet enthusiasts will lead to a decrease in the popularity of the medium. Others believe that the use of blogs by organizations will add new voices and vitality to the medium. At any rate, there is little evidence that the growth rate of the blogosphere has slowed. In 2005 the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) published a guide to blog anonymously and safely about work or anything else.
Advice
Many weblogs provide expert advice, such as Microsoft technical knowledge (GaryDev (http://blog.advisor.com/blog/garydev.nsf)) or fiction publishing for women (Four Chicks and a Book (http://www.codexwriters.com/4chicks/)). Religious Some blogs discuss religious topics.
Religious
Religious blogs show the public's points of view on various controversies both in religion and in politics, economics, and life in general.
Formats
Some weblogs specialise in particular forms of presentation, such as images (see web comics), or videos (see videoblog), or on a particular theme, and acronyms have been developed for some of these, such as moblogs (for "mobile" blog).
Audio
One of the types of blog that has undergone rapid expansion since the year 2000 is the MP3 blog, which make audio files available to the user. MP3 blogs are normally targeted at highly specialized musical genres, such as late 60s soul music or early 90s hip-hop or even the latest stuff in electronic dance music genres like grime. However, personal audioblogs are also on the rise (See also Podcasting).
Photography
The increasing ubiquity of digital cameras and broadband connections has made it ever easier to post and share photos on the web. Bloggers have adapted their software to facilitate the publishing of photos, creating what is called a photoblog. Photo sharing sites like Buzznet (http://www.buzznet.com) and Flickr have integrated the typical photo gallery service with photo sharing, blogging and syndication to create a new kind of social software.
Video
In January 2005 the first VloggerCon (http://vloggercon.blogspot.com) was held, catering for a new breed of bloggers, the video blogger. A vlog, or videoblog, is a blog where video is included in blog posts. This is also known as videoblogging.
When discussing about blogs, most people are not aware that there is great variety of genres, and that homogeneity is unheard of in the blogosphere. Just because the interface looks somewhat similar does not mean that the content is as well. In fact, as the blogging phenomenon exploded, its uses and styles have followed suit every inch of the way. Hence, this section samples just a small flavour of what is out there in the blogosphere.
Political Blogs
When discussed in the news, the term blog is often understood to refer to a "political blog." Political blogs may take a number of forms. Often an individual will link to articles from news web sites and post their own comments as well. Others focus on long essays about current political topics. Most news, activism, and issue-based blogs follow the same format. In fact, a recent trend in politics is that candidates are incorporating blogging into their own campaigns, tying blogs into the world of politics. In fact, in the current 2005 Chilean presidential election, the four candidates are currently using their own blogs as part of their campaign mechanisms.
Personal Blogs
The term personal blogs is often used to describe an online diary or journal, such as Xanga. The weblog format of an online diary makes it possible for users without much experience to create, format, and post entries with ease. People often write their day-to-day experiences, complaints, poems, prose, illicit thoughts and more, allowing others to contribute.
Business Blogs
A number of entrepreneurs are establishing blogs to promote their businesses. Often business blogs act as a showcase for entrepreneurs to provide a window into the behind-the-scenes activities at their business, presenting a more personal "face" to the public rather than a cold corporate persona (Wikipedia, 2005). In some cases the blog itself is the core of the business bringing in revenue from advertising, selling products or information.
Topical Blogs
Topical blogs focus on very particular niche. An example is Google Blog, which covers nothing but news about Google. Another example is a soldier blog, also known as a military blog, or "milblog." Many blogs now allow categories, which means a general blog can be reshuffled to become a topical blog at the user's need.
Health Blogs
Blogs written as personal accounts of living with a specific health issue, sharing information about the experience with others who have an interest in that health issue and providing mutual support. A major category of health blogs are medical blogs, which themselves generally fall into two categories. One type is a blog written by a health care professional about his or her work experiences, medical news or other personal thoughts. A more recent trend is a blog that deals with actual patient cases. This latter blog allows other physicians to submit cases to the web site. Physicians can then offer comments or help with the case.
Literary Blogs
A "litblog" as it is sometimes called, is a blog that focuses primarily on the topic of literature. There is a community of litblogs in the blogosphere whose authors cover a variety of subtopics within the realm of literary matters. Litbloggers write about the publishing industry, writing, current fiction, poetry, literary journals, reader's diaries, criticism and genres of literature, including science fiction and mystery, just to name a few.
Travel Blogs
Famous explorers wrote their journeys down on paper. Blogging has opened the forum for everyone, thus allowing modern-day travelers with blogs as a way to share their stories and photos, even while they are traveling around the world.
Research Blogs
An increasing number of scholars and students blog their research notes, combining the traditional scholar's private notebook with public discussion. A related genre is the anonymous professor's blog, where the various issues related to academia are freely discussed.
Legal Blawgs
Blogs by lawyers or law students, which discuss law and legal affairs are often referred to as "blawgs." By extension, the creator of such a blog is a blawger, sometimes spelled blawgger. In fact, legal scholars and celebrities such as Denise Howell and Richard Posner post legal commentaries and case analyses on their own blogs.
Educational Blogs
Students often use blogs as records of their learning while teachers use them as records of what they taught. For example, a teacher can blog a course, recording day-by-day what was taught, including links to internet resources, and specifying what homework students are required to carry out. This application has many advantages: (1) a student can quickly catch-up if they miss a class; (2) the teacher can use the blog as a course plan; and (3) the blog serves as an accurate summary of the course that prospective students or new teachers can refer to.
Collaborative
The collaborative features of blogs can be used to permit several students to contribute to the blog. One excellent example is Justin Hall’s course blog. (Hall is regarded as one of the earliest pioneers of blogging).However, these are but a sample of the blogs that are being used by the online community. There almost a countless, unimaginable variety of other blogs waiting to be read. Forbes Magazine has recently compiled a top-ten list rankings of the best blogs according to different blogging categories.
Thoughtful
Where a personal weblog is primarily concerned with daily life and events, and many topical weblogs focus on some technical topic, weblogs in the "thoughtful" category present an individual's (or a small group's) thoughts on whatever subject comes to hand; not necessarily the latest computer technology or the latest political scandal, but typically less contingent and more philosophical subjects. Thoughtful weblogs of course blur into personal weblogs on one side and topical or political ones on the other, but are distinct enough to constitute a category of their own.
FriendBlog
A FriendBlog is a distributed networked journal on the web, composed of short, frequently updated posts written by friends connected through their similar interests. The author allows his FriendBlog to connect to other FriendBlogs, belonging to friends and acquaintances. This creates a "chain" of blogs.
News
Many weblogs provide a news digest on a certain topic, e.g., Internet in China , baseball, or music with short abstracts/summaries and links to interesting articles in the press. Collaborative (also collective or group) Many weblogs are written by more than one person about a specific topic. Collaborative weblogs can be open to everyone or limited to a group of people. MetaFilter is an example of this type of weblog. Slashdot, whose status as a blog has been debated, nevertheless has a team of editors who approve and post links to technology news stories throughout the day. Although Slashdot does not refer to itself as a weblog, it shares some characteristics with weblogs. A new form of blog involves cooperation between bloggers and traditional media sources, allowing for topics discussed on the air to find legs on the Web, and vice-versa. The first and most prominent example of this form is Lone Star Times.
Legal
Blogs that discuss law and legal affairs are often referred to as blawgs.
Directory
Directory weblogs are useful for web-surfers because they often collect numerous web sites with interesting content in an easy to use and constantly updated format. News-related weblogs can fall into this category or the previous one (political blogs).
Media
Some blogs serve as media watchdogs, reporting on falsehoods or inconsistencies that are presented as facts in the mass media. Many media blogs are focused exclusively on one newspaper or television network.
Corporate
Increasingly, employees of corporations are posting official or semi-official blogs about their work. The employers however, do not always appreciate the endeavor. In January 2005 Joe Gordon was fired from Waterstone's bookshop in Edinburgh, Scotland, because he referred to his boss as an "asshole in sandals." In 2004 Ellen Simonetti, a Delta Air Lines flight attendant, was fired for posing in uniform on her blog. Perhaps the most famous case of all occurred when "Troutgirl" Joyce Park was fired from Friendster because she discussed the rationale behind the website's technology conversion from J2EE to PHP on her blog. Other employers have reacted differently. For instance, when Power Line bloggers were attacked by a Minneapolis Star Tribune columnist, one of the bloggers' employers came to his defense. With the rise in popularity of blogs in 2004 senior management caught on to the trend and by January 2005 several types of organizations, including universities, had started using blogs to communicate with their stakeholders. Many believe this corporate takeover of a tool that was used primarily by Internet enthusiasts will lead to a decrease in the popularity of the medium. Others believe that the use of blogs by organizations will add new voices and vitality to the medium. At any rate, there is little evidence that the growth rate of the blogosphere has slowed. In 2005 the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) published a guide to blog anonymously and safely about work or anything else.
Advice
Many weblogs provide expert advice, such as Microsoft technical knowledge (GaryDev (http://blog.advisor.com/blog/garydev.nsf)) or fiction publishing for women (Four Chicks and a Book (http://www.codexwriters.com/4chicks/)). Religious Some blogs discuss religious topics.
Religious
Religious blogs show the public's points of view on various controversies both in religion and in politics, economics, and life in general.
Formats
Some weblogs specialise in particular forms of presentation, such as images (see web comics), or videos (see videoblog), or on a particular theme, and acronyms have been developed for some of these, such as moblogs (for "mobile" blog).
Audio
One of the types of blog that has undergone rapid expansion since the year 2000 is the MP3 blog, which make audio files available to the user. MP3 blogs are normally targeted at highly specialized musical genres, such as late 60s soul music or early 90s hip-hop or even the latest stuff in electronic dance music genres like grime. However, personal audioblogs are also on the rise (See also Podcasting).
Photography
The increasing ubiquity of digital cameras and broadband connections has made it ever easier to post and share photos on the web. Bloggers have adapted their software to facilitate the publishing of photos, creating what is called a photoblog. Photo sharing sites like Buzznet (http://www.buzznet.com) and Flickr have integrated the typical photo gallery service with photo sharing, blogging and syndication to create a new kind of social software.
Video
In January 2005 the first VloggerCon (http://vloggercon.blogspot.com) was held, catering for a new breed of bloggers, the video blogger. A vlog, or videoblog, is a blog where video is included in blog posts. This is also known as videoblogging.
posted by bea ghen at 9:45 PM
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