Classifications of Blogs

Blogs can be started by technically anyone, anytime, anywhere. Thus, there is no limit to the amount of people that are submitting their thoughts about a subject matter via blogs. According to technorati.com (2008), there are six major subject matter categories of blogs. They are known as:

(a) Entertainment blogs or more likely to be known as gossip blogs

(b) business

(c) technology

(d) lifestyle

(e) politics

These major categories then branch into many sub-categories. Subject matters can range from:-

(a)Architecture

(b)Food and wine

(c)Fashion

(d)Parenting

(e)Automobiles

(f)Pets

(g)Travel

(h)Health

Blogs are not just limited to writing your thoughts on a given platform but it is also categorized to various media types as stated by David (2008). The different types of media are

(a)vlog - is short video blog, is a term use to describe a blog that contains video clips. Examples of vlog are youtube.com

(b)linklog - is a blog that consist of other blogs' URL and you can link to those blogs. Example of a linklog is Lisanova.

(c)sketchlog - is a blog that consists of images, especially sketches and other drawings. Example of a sketchlog is rob-sheridan.

(d)tumblelog - is a short and concise blog that provides little or sometimes no commentary at all. Example of a tumblelog is projectionist.

(e)photolog - is a blog that contains photos, where the photos is the primary element not the text. Example of a photolog is photoshack.

(f)splog - is short for spam blog, it is actually a fake blog solely made to promote affiliated Web sites.

In terms of blogs on mobile, there is the moblog. A moblog is short for mobile blogging. it is a blog where Mobile Phones acts as another device to publish blog entries. Example of a moblog is flickr.

Status of publishers:
(a) Business blog, e.g. GuruFocus.com
(b) Corporate blogs, e.g. Redfin Corporate Blog

An overabundance of blogs nowadays are the fusion of the various categories.The versatilities of blogs and the combination of blog styles has made it hard to identify its unique nature.Therefore, a certain look, feel,topic, style, and format is needed to differentiate the different types of blogs out there.

Virtual Connection

People from all around the world communicating with each other regarding similar interests in a topic and forming a club regarding that interest is not something new or unusual today. Similarly, 'an online or virtual community is a group of people with common interests and practices who communicate in an organised way using the Internet through a common location or mechanism.’ (Averweg & Leaning 2007).

A blogging community is simply a virtual community created by bloggers from around the world. As there are various book or football clubs online,so are there various blogging communities such as MyBlogLog, BeanRocket Blogging Communities, BlogCatalog and BlogBurst to name a few.


BlogCatalog
Source: (Google Images, 2009)

These different types of blogging communities connect various blogs and bloggers to other bloggers. (MakeYouGoHmm.com, 2008). Blogs ‘enables readers of Web pages to leave information about themselves, building a social network among fans of such things as MySpace pages, commercial Web publications, or personal blogs.’(Hardy 2007). BlogCatalog for instance is a great platform for bloggers to promote their blog to people online as blogcatalogs is not just a social community, they are also one of the largest blog directories on the internet. (Li, 2006) It also has many different categories ranging from automobiles, academic, religion, health, politics, to vacations and many more.

Thus, this creates a more versatile platform for bloggers as they can connect with people of their interest and spur discussions about a topic. In The Media Report (2008), Margaret Simons a freelance journalist, talks about how blogging has altered and affected our lives today. Take politics for instance, in Malaysia, the mainstream media is known to biased and provide and deliver government based information to the general public. However, with the emergence of blogs, bloggers can now talk about politics in a different viewpoint and readers can now get two sides of a story. With blogcatalog providing so many discussion topics online,it allow readers to create a social network and then building a blogging community.

I would create a blogging community via my blog by creating a comment section and a chat box to enable people to chat with me about a topic and discuss it in more detail. I will also provide links to other credible blogs on the sidebar.

References

Averweg, UR & Leaning, M 2007, Are ‘Virtual Communities’ Virtual?, The Southern Africa Institute of Management Services, viewed 12 June 2009,
<http://www.mtm-association.org.za/Are%20Virtual%20Communities%20Virtual.pdf>.

Blogging, The Phenomenon: Text Based 2006, Thinkquest, viewed on 11 June 2009,
<http://library.thinkquest.org/05aug/01130/typesofblogs_textbased.html>

Blog directory 2008, Technorati, viewed 11 June 2009,
<http://technorati.com/blogs/directory>.

Li, X (eds) 2006, Internet Newspapers: The Making of a Mainstream Medium, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, USA.

The 8 different types of blogging in 2008, MakeYouGoHmm .com, viewed in 11 June 2009,
<http://www.makeyougohmm.com/20080124/5040/>