An Introduction about blogs and blogging

What is a Blog?
Blogs are basically online diaries which allow bloggers to express their feelings and opinions thru writings, articles and also photos. According to blogger.com:

"A blog is a personal diary. A daily pulpit. A collaborative space. A political soapbox. A breaking-news outlet. A collection of links. Your own private thoughts. Memos to the world." (Blogger as cited in BBC news, 2007)

Blogging has become so popular that people from around the world started blogging as a hobby and business tool. A survey named “Blogging Asia: A Windows Live Report” was conducted in Hong Kong, India, Korea, Malaysia, Singpore, Taiwan and Thailand has made me realize that 50 percent of bloggers in Malaysia blog to express their feelings while 63 percent uses this tool as an entertainment. I also found out that Malaysian bloggers all share the same taste in blogging seeing that blogs on music, technology and travel were ranked among the most popular. (Jeff Ooi,2006)

The purpose of blogging
People blog to express their feelings towards certain issues or mainly for entertainment. I personally own a personal blog and I don’t think it’s a waste of time for me to maintain it. By updating my blog, my friends get to see what is happening in my life. They get to share my happiness and sadness and at the same time comment on certain issues. However, I do not update my blog just to share my experience with my friends, I blog because I want to see how much I have change from the past by reading my old post and at the same time take the opportunity to improve my writing.

What kind of blogs are there?
Blogs are like internet as they have variety of topics and styles. The most common blog around is personal blogs that express the author’s feelings and perception. However there are other categories of blogs like political parties, business, media organization, religious and professional groups. More often or not, most blogs contain a variety of multimedia content such as pictures, videos, and audio.

The blogging community
There are a few popular blogging community around namely blogspot (which I am using), wordpress, xanga, live journal, multiply and so on. These blogging communities help bloggers to link their topics with other web sites that are revevant to the entry and allow readers to leave comments or links in their blog. Generally, this interactive way allows all bloggers to refer to each other thus creating a community called “blogspheres”, where they share common interest, topics and themes.

Designing for online vs. print
Designing for online is very much different from designing for print. Print design uses 2-dimensional which pays more attention on the layout while a web page is basically a scrolling experience where users are opposed to a canvas experience.
Print can amaze readers with high-impact visualization, but online medium can engage users with the information given by non-static design elements. The web allows users to view moving images and manipulate interactive widgets. For example, basic web technology allows readers to connect by clicking on certain hyperlinks or objects which provides explanations or expansions in context (voice-over, pop-ups, overlays)

It is important to know that great print design is likely to be a lousy web design. Print design is based on letting the readers eyes view over the information using spatial juxtaposition to make page elements improved and clarify each other. Web design lets the hands move the information by clicking or scrolling. The relationship between readers and the information is expressed through the reader’s movement. (Neilsen, 1999)


How technology influence the nature of blogs
Digital audio players such as Apple’s iPod have become so popular that it has encouraged blogs to develop with audio content. People usually download these audio blogs through “pod cast”. Users get to download a variety of audio files such as music and talks and then listen to them with their portable media player or personal computer.

Besides that, in the United States, cell phones are built-in with digital cameras and wireless internet connection to make blogging easier. Bloggers can update their blogs anytime and anywhere by snapping pictures and write short caption through their hand phones and post it on their “mob log” or mobile log. (ABC news, 2007)

Reference:
2007, What is blogging [Online, accessed 7 June. 2007]
URL:http://www.bbc.co.uk/webwise/askbruce/articles/browse/blogging_1.shtml

2005, What is blogging [Online, accessed 7 June. 2007]
URL: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=889289&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

Ooi, J. 2006, Blogging for social connection and self-expression [Online,
accessed 7 June.2007]
URL:http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/blog/lemaklemang/0,39056113,61971059,00.htm

Nielsen, J. 1999, Print design Vs web design [Online, accessed 7 June.2007] URL:http://www.useit.com/alertbox/990124.html