The Dramatic Spawning of Blogs & Communities

(Source: Technorati's Directory)

On my previous posts, I mentioned that the blogs category doesn't attach to just one significant category but it is segregated into many types of categories such as:

• Entertainment
• Lifestyle
• Sports
• Business
• Politics
• Technology

Under the Entertainment category, it has several sections such as:

• Celebrity and Gossip
• Gaming
• Movies and Film
• Music
• Television
• Theater

Basically this is what we all called as sub-categories being separated from its' original pattern. If one loves to play games and online games would be refering under the sub-category called Gaming and once click, there will many types of games and depending on which game he/she chooses to read on the blog section. This reading habits are known as the blogging community.

In other means of term, this sub-categories are known as blog classification which indirectly are tags. So the classification within a tag is to inform what this blog or post is about and it depends if it catches the online users interest. Let's say, the tag 'Warhammer online' may be valid in a personal blog telling stories of his/her gameplay interface and someone else was looking for this new jackhammer for his construction yard will find that this post is irrelevant to him/her.

According to Heuer (2007), the primary value of Blogging is the simplicity of publishing as opposed to the several steps necessary to create web pages and then upload them and maintain an index. It is the simplicity of the tools that expands the audience of potential publishers, and this is where the focus should be.

Blogging Community

(Source: Blogger)

What exactly is the blogging community? According to Downes (2005), a group of bloggers forming a community which create the term blogging community. If an individual user online creates a blog will actually get in touch with any blogger out there depending on his/her tags of category.

A blogging community is consist of avid bloggers sharing the same kind of topic interest. Each of these blog communities has its own practices and beliefs which are shaped by explicit community guidelines. For instance, The Redhead Blogs community specifically announces the types of redheads allowed in the community and warns against offensive content (Redhead Blogs, 2004). Online communities have widen up the horizon surrounding them and competing with towards another forms of media such as newsgroups, digital games, or chat rooms and have developed their own norms, unique to the medium and the culture of each group.

Define: Personal Blog

Source: Lim May Zhee's Blog

Blogging communities too may developed practices and norms influenced by the blog format. The blog format allows for highly individualistic expression. For example, Rebecca Blood, a writer-turn-blogger blogs on the introduction of Blogger, regarding the popular tool which made essay, article and journal writings so easy that anyone could blog absolutely about anything whether it is about gaming, politics, entertainment and about individuals daily lives. It has probably influenced the growth of “short-form journal” (Blood, 2000).

For example:

• BlogCatalog
• MyBlogLog
• WCG Malaysian Gamers Blog!

Blogging community (WCG Malaysian Gamers Blog!)

Other Type of Media Devices:

• Vlog (Video embedded within a blog)
  
• Linklog (A blog which contain multiple links)
  
• Sketchblog (Portfolio of sketches art in a blog gallery)
  
• Photoblog (Compilation of photographs in a blog)
  
• Tumblelogs (A blog which contains all form of media content)

Examples of Blogs' Genre:

Political Blog:
- Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim
- Lim Kit Siang
- Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamed
- Jeff Ooi
- The People's Parliament

Fashion Blogs:
- LOL! Tees
- Urban Tee

Project Blogs:
- The RAWK Foundation

Gaming Blogs:
- Mistress Hrin's Granado Espada Blog
- Game Life - Wired Blogs
- TYLER Projects

Music Blogs:
- Boogie Woogie Flu
- motel de moka
- The Troubadours KL
- The Doppelganger KL

References:

Downes, S 2005, Community Blogging, viewed 9 November 2008,
< http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/page.cgi?post=14>

Technorati 2008, Blog Directory, viewed 9 November 2008,
<http://technorati.com/blogs/directory>

ABC Radio National 2008, A taxanomy of blogs, viewed 9 November 2008, <http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2008/2372882.htm#transcript>

Blood, R 2000, September, Weblogs: A history and perspective, viewed 9 November 2008, <http://www.rebeccablood.net/essays/weblog_history.html >

Redhead Blogs... A webring for redheads! 2004,viewed 9 November 2008, < http://www.2girlsdesign.com/redheads/ >

Heuer, C 2007, Simple Blog Classification System (please no acronyms), viewed 9 November 2008, <http://www.chrisheuer.com/2005/07/14/simple-blog-classification-system-please-no-acronyms/>