Blogs as Current Phenomenon & Benefits of Blogging to the Community

Blogs in the world now are being one of the most important domains. People are getting more and more aware of the use of blogging on the website. Blogs are basically a website similar to forum or social bookmarking site (Scocco 2008).

The size of the blogosphere is roughly about 31 million bloggers only in the United State in the latest update on July 2012 (Johnson 2012). It further illustrates that out of the 31 million bloggers, 43% of them use for wordpress, 35% normal blogger, 16% use for tumblr, typePad and posterous and the remaining 6% is using the blog for other purposes. ‘

According to NS(2008), in Asia included Malaysia, there are about 112.8 million blog being tracked and more than 250 million pieces of tagged social media, cited in Technorati (2008). He further state that there over 175 thousand new blogs appearing each day. This has proved that blogs are one of the most trending website among the people in the Asia.

There are many type of blogs such as corporate blogs, personal blogs, podcast, videos and more. However, in Malaysia, a personal blog and a corporate blog is prevalent. Not only in Malaysia, but these blogs are also prevalent in Europe as well as in the Asia.

In my opinion, a political blog is somehow beneficial to the Malaysian. This kind of blog will help the citizens in voicing up as a freedom/ free speech against the government. This is supported by Ramadass(2006), she stated that about 20% of the people in Malaysia voted on blogs which focused in the politic matters.

Reference

Johnson Z 2012, ‘State of the Blogging World in 2012’, blogworld.com, viewed 13 September 2012, <http://www.blogworld.com/2012/07/25/state-of-the-blogging-world-in-2012/>.

NS 2008, ‘Blogging Trends affecting Penang & Malaysia’, slideshare.net ,viewed 13 September 2012, <http://www.slideshare.net/myPajamanation/blogging-trends-affecting-penang-malaysia-presentation>.

Ramadass, V 2006, ‘Blogging phenomenon sweeps Asia’, 28 November, Lowyat.NET: Malaysia’s Tech Enthusiast Resource Community, viewed 13 September 2012, <http://www.lowyat.net/v2/latest/blogging-phenomenon-sweeps-asia.html>.

Scocco D 2008, ‘What is a Blog?’ dailyblogtips.com, viewed 13 September 2012,  <http://www.dailyblogtips.com/what-is-a-blog/>.  

Classification of Blogs & Opinion the Most Appropriate Classification Approach

Weblogging has becoming one of the places for people to have a freedom of speech. People all around the world tends to use the weblog to express themselves like publishing their personal updates. Not only that, company and businesses people has also use the weblog to have a better recognition and gain a better awareness among people.

In other words, there are actually several types of blogs on the website. According to Arends (2012), blog is one of the best ways to keep your friends and associates updated on the events in your life. Arend also came out with a list of sort of general type of blogs.

Personal blog which also the most commonly used is a blog that every individuals use it as a diary or a journal like posting one’s feeling and expressing them freely.

Cultural blog is a blog where people have a discussion on the arts, music, as well as to share their own culture views around.

Business blog is definitely help in promoting the type of businesses or discussing on the management also the updates on stock market and the economics.

There are also many other blogs like science blogs, moblog, educational blog, forum blog that the author further discussed on it.

In my point of view, Arends (2012) has just generally providing the type of blog and the used of the blogs without going more in-depth on it. On the other hand, Herzog (2011), discuss the importance of taxonomy blogs. He stated that it is important to have the attribute to a category and a tag. For example, in a blog, a category might be a media and the tags might be the blogging.

Reference

Arends T 2012, ‘Different Types of Blogs and the Many Facets of Blogging’, business2community.com, viewed 15 September 2012 <http://www.business2community.com/blogging/different-types-of-blogs-and-the-many-facets-of-blogging-0174473>.

Herzog A 2011, ‘Why Blog Taxonomies are Important’, ariherzog.com, viewed 15 September 2012 <http://ariherzog.com/why-blog-taxonomies-are-important/>.

Credibility Perceived and Building Credibility

The number of blogs are uncountable nowadays. Even on a similar topic, bloggers tends to provide sorts of information which differ from one another. According to a journal written by Azlin and Mustaffa (n.d.), it is a challenge for people in selecting credibility piece of information. They further explain the difference between an adult and a youth in perceiving the credibility.

Azlin and Mustaffa(n.d.), stated that adult tends to select information where they think it is accurate, reliable, understandable and well written on the topic. Whereas, amongst the youths, they ‘consider whether information is related to the topic and whether it is new, interesting, and convenient, while showing less interest in authority, the readability of the language and recency (cited in Rieh and Hilligoss 2008). These have shown that, the thinking of an adult reader and a youth reader of blogs are rather different.

According to Bueno (2012), there are few ways in building the blog’s credibility. One of the ways is create a thorough “About Us” page. Bloggers must provide their own information at least up to a circumstance of name, email, or facebook account. Reason is because reader would like to know who is the writer and the background of the writer.

Creating a testimonial page is an instant credibility booster especially in a business blog, it is easier to influence the reader to have a ‘yes’ or an ‘agree’ decision as there are real reference provided.

Lastly, blogger can respond to inquiries in timely manner. This is because many bloggers nowadays does not give respond to their readers, so if you are one of the minor one who give respond, you are actually gaining a better credibility.

Reference

Azlin B N & Mustaffa N n.d., ‘Blogosphere: How youth perceived blogs credibility’, Malaysian Journal of Communication, Vol. 28(1) pp.33-54, viewed on 16 September 2012, <http://www.ukm.my/jkom/journal/pdf_files/2012/V28_1_33-54.pdf>.

Bueno R 2012, ‘5 Ways To Build Your Blog’s Credibility & Generate More Leads’, diversesolutions.com, viewed 16 September 2012, <http://www.diversesolutions.com/blogging/build-your-blogs-credibility-2275>.