Classification of Blogs

In Asia Pacific, number of blogs has been increasing. The variety of blogs has been widening too many different kinds of blogs example different interest or hobbies. Based on WordPress.com (n.d), there are varieties of blogs example; personal, business, schools, reviews and many more. These blogs are very detailed but it can be grouped into more general ones. As Talwar (2010) classify four types of blogs which is company blogs, personal blogs, general blogs, and niche blogs.

Here are some examples of it:

•   Company Blogs - http://en.community.dell.com/dell-blogs/default.aspx 

•   Personal Blogs - http://tziaaa.com/

•  General Blogs - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-blog/

• Niche Blogs - http://www.bloggingjunction.com/

Overall, the most common types of blogs are weblog. Perrone (2004) said weblog is a log of the web, a diary-style site in which the blogger links other web pages that they find interesting using entries posted in a reverse chronological order.

According to Simons (2008) differentiate nine types of blogs which included pamphleteering blogs or political blogs, digest blogs, advocacy blogs, popular mechanics blogs, exhibition blogs but some people name it as vanity publishing, gatewatcher blogs, diary blogs, advertisement blogs, and lastly news blogs.

To compare the classification from Simons (2008) and Talwar (2010) shows that each of them has different classification on the types of blogs. As Simons (2008) has classified the types of blogs more detail whereas, Talwar (2010) differentiates them into wider groups. Simons (2008) mostly defines the types of blog into advertising product or services rather than the general groups.

In my opinion, as there are so many types of blogs out there in the web so it is hard for us to specifically divide them into particular groups. A good example has shown in personal blog tziaaa.com (n.d), there are two types of blogs which is dairy blogs and advertisement blogs as the blogger also advertised some product and services that they are interested. Hence, each blogger has not only one type of hobby; they can have several so it is hard for us to classify them into specific types.

References:

• bloggingjunction.com 2011, Start A Forum In Your Blog With vBulletin, online, viewed 1^st May 2011, <http://www.bloggingjunction.com/>
• Dell.com n.d, Blogs, online, viewed 1^st May 2011, <http://en.community.dell.com/dell-blogs/default.aspx>
• huffingtonpost.com 2011, THE HUFFINGTON POST, online, viewed 1^st May 2011, <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-blog/>
• Jane Perrone 2004, What is a Weblog?, online, viewed 1^st May 2011, <http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2004/may/20/weblogs>
• Margaret Simons 2008, A taxonomy of blogs, online, viewed 1^st May 2011, <http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2008/2372882.htm#transcript>
• Melissa Smich 2010, Different Types of Blogs, online, viewed 1^st May 2011, <http://myhosting.com/blog/2010/04/types-blogs-2/>
• Saksham Talwar 2010, 4 Different Types Of Blogs That Exist!, online, viewed 1^st May 2011, <http://www.bloggingjunction.com/4-types-of-blogs/>
• Tziaaa.com n.d, Summit’s mom on facebook, online, viewed 1^st May 2011, <http://tziaaa.com/>
• WordPress.com n.d, Types of Blogs, online, viewed 1^st May 2011, <http://en.wordpress.com/types-of-blogs/>

Blogging as current Phenomenon & Benefits to the Community

Sifry (2006) mentioned that there are 50 million of blogs out there. A research based on Technorati (2006) a blog search company, stated that there are 1.6 million postings per day.

Below is a pie chart showing the percentages of bloggers in worldwide.

Figure 1 - Statistic of bloggers in worldwide
Source: (http://technorati.com/blogging/article/who-bloggers-brands-and-consumers-day/)

As everyone noticed most of the bloggers are from North America 38%, which followed by United States 33%. According to Sobel (2010) California has taken 15%, New York 8%, Texas 6%, Florida 4%, Illinois 4%, Massachusetts 4%, Virginia 4%, Washington 4%, Georgia 3%, and New Jersey 3%.

Apart from that, Sobel (2010) stated that the growth of mobile blogging is a key trend currently, 25% of bloggers are engaged in mobile blogging. While for the 40% of bloggers says blogging from their smart phone has changed the way of blogging, it encourages shorter and more spontaneous posts. He said 48% of bloggers believed more people will be getting their news and entertainment from blogs in the next five years rather than from the traditional media.

Here is another pie chart on the four different types of bloggers in worldwide.

Figure 2 - The four types of bloggers in worldwide

Source: (http://technorati.com/blogging/article/state-of-the-blogosphere-2010-introduction/page-2/)
 

Sorbel (2010) said bloggers can be divided into hobbyist blogger, part timer, corporate, and self employed bloggers. Hobbyist blogger are those who blog for fun, mostly blogging on their daily lifestyles and do not earn any income from it. Whereas part timer bloggers are those who blog to earn extra income, and corporate bloggers are those who blogs for the company to get published in the traditional media and they get income. Self employed are they blog full time or sometimes and most of them have a blog related to their business or company.

As Marlow (2009) believes that the numbers of blogs have grown in the past 10 years by creating the blogging trend. Blogging is to improve the communication skills in each one of us. While, blogs may create more opportunities for the nonprofit organizations by creating awareness, voicing out personal opinions, sharing experiences and information, educating, and employing staff and volunteers. Marlow (2009) blogs are the alternative information and blogging encourages word-of-mouth buzz, meaning others post links of your blog to their websites.

Nowadays, blogging has become a phenomenon in today’s activities. Youths today’s regardless of ages do has a blog, most of them blogged on their daily lifestyles, some discussing on the social issue, creating awareness, discussing the current fashion trends, and blogs for businesses. The benefits of blogging are to share their experiences, knowledge, to voice out and share their opinions, and it also enables the nation to communicate with each other across the country. However they are some restriction while blogging, bloggers must not touch issue on politics as it is a sensitive issue in worldwide.

References:

• Elizabeth Marlow 2009, Benefits of Blogs, online, viewed 29^th April 2011, <http://www.nprcenter.org/knowledgebase-mainmenu-203/web-20-for-nonprofits-mainmenu-402/benefits-of-blogs-mainmenu-404.html>
• Gary Bourgeault 2006, 10 Great Strategic Benefits of Blogging, online, viewed 29^th April 2011, <http://www.thealphamarketer.com/2006/04/10_great_strategic_benefits_of.html>
• Jon Sobel 2010, WHO: Bloggers, Brands and Consumers - Day 1 SOTB 2010, online, viewed 29^th April 2011, <http://technorati.com/blogging/article/who-bloggers-brands-and-consumers-day/>
• Jon Sobel 2010, State of the Blogosphere 2010 Introduction, online, viewed 29^th April 2011, <http://technorati.com/blogging/article/state-of-the-blogosphere-2010-introduction/>
• Jon Sobel 2010, State of the Blogosphere 2010 Introduction - Page 2, online, viewed 29^th April 2011, <http://technorati.com/blogging/article/state-of-the-blogosphere-2010-introduction/page-2/>
• Luis Suarez 2006, 10 Great Strategic Benefits of Blogging, online, viewed 29^th April 2011, <http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/elsua/10-great-strategic-benefits-of-blogging-9233>
• Om Malik 2006, How big is the Blogosphere really?, online, viewed 29^th April 2011, <http://gigaom.com/2006/08/09/how-big-is-the-blogosphere-really/>

Good PowerPoint Presentation

According to Reep (2006) written text and presentation work together to provide readers with the information they need, during the planning stage it is vital to consider on the design of presentation slides before selecting the appropriate information and organize.

At this new era, writers nowadays are not just merely producing documents; therefore they are also proficient in integrating prose with document designs. However, it is important to provide readers with the information they need in a form that they can interpret easily.

Bernhardt (1986) mentioned the differences of visually-informative text and non-visually informative text, whereas visual-informative text may be identified through headings and identifying symbols. He also uses law of visual identity, law of equilibrium, law of closure, law of good continuation, and law of similarity to identify visual-informative text.

As Reep (2006) principles of design are the important qualities to any visual presentation regardless of topic or audience, and the general principles most designers consider are balance, proportion, sequence and consistency. 

Here is an example of some bad and good presentation slides:

Figure A - With Spacing (Bad presentation slides)

Figure B - No Spacing (Good presentation slides)

In figure A pointed with black arrow shows that there are spacing between each point, whereas figure B did not have any spacing.

It is really important to have the same typeface and margins throughout the presentation. As readers would not get confuse and it has a flow that allows readers to read easily.

Although Bernhardt (1986) said the law of good continuation suggests that visual perception works to pull figures out of the background to differentiate them from the field which they are located. Besides that, he also says that good continuation is achieved through a clear background, headings, and through the groupings of related information which are set off by blank space.

But for Reep (2006), consistency refers to presenting similar features in a similar style and by having consistency in each element is important throughout a presentation or documents.

Figure 2 - Pictures are pixilated (Bad presentation slides)

The picture above shows that the photograph that has been used is pixilated.

Photos that to be use in the presentation must always are clear and not pixilated. This shows that messages are sent effectively to the readers.

Reep (2006) a photograph provides a surface view of an object or event, and to be effective photographs must be clear and focus on the pertinent item. She also stated that it is important by eliminating distracting backgrounds or other objects from the photograph.

Figure 3 - Couldn’t differentiate main points and sub-points as the color of bullets are similar. (Bad presentation slides)

The box in black illustrates that it is difficult for audience to differentiate the main point and the sub-point. As the color of the bullets for the main point and sub-point are somehow almost similar.

While preparing presentation slides, it is important that colors that are being used must not only specific to all bright colors or soft colors. The selection of colors are vital, to ensure that messages are being sent to our audience effectively. Below is an example of an improved version and it is clearer.

Figure 4 - A better presentation slides compare to figure 3. (Good presentation slides)

As Reep (2006) mentioned color in a document or Websites is eye-catching and appealing to readers. She also says that color can distinguished among levels of information by coding information to purpose or importance, and consider how color creates style and supports usability while using it in printed documents or Websites.


References:

• Bernhardt, Stephen A. 1986, ‘Seeing the Text,’ College Composition and Communication, vol. 37, no.1, pp.66-78. 
• Reep, Diana C. 2006, ‘Chapter 4: Principles of Document Design,’ in Technical Writing, 6^th edition, Pearson Education, Inc., New York, p. 173-190.

Prelude

Hi, welcome to my blog. (;

I will start with a brief introduction on the role of designs.

Design does play an important role to those who are in the publication field, communication take place effectively as teenage these days are more visualize; they prefer more pictures than text.

The aim is to communicate and analyze the issue pertaining to publication design by applying the relevant theories.

My targeted audience will be mainly the undergraduates, employees and employers, the media and production industry who are concerned on publication and design issues.

Enjoy reading! (;