Blogging Issue 5 : Screen Vs. Print Document Design

     Screen versus print document debate has been going on for quite sometime. There are definitely differences between both types of documents especially in terms of the layout and the writing structures. A printed piece appeals to a basic level of a person’s senses. They read word by word but for print document, they skim and scan. If we compare a printed newspaper and a blog, recent generation will prefer to read blog compared to newspaper. The layout of the blogs are more attractive with different themes. Each time new things uploaded with animations, the reader will be more attracted to read the blog.

DIAGRAM 3. 0 : LAYOUT OF THE BLOG

     As for the newspaper, it remains black and white printing at most of the time and definitely not appealing as the blogs. Apart from that, printed documents takes up a lot of physical space. However, screen documents can be viewed anytime and anywhere unlike printed document which can be only in one place at a time (Natalie, 2009).

DIAGRAM 3. 1 : LAYOUT OF THE NEWSPAPERS

    Moving on to the writing structures, printed version documents are more likely to have the same type and size of the font. On the other hand, printed document’s fonts can vary according to the blogger’s tastes and choices.

DIAGRAM 3. 2 : FONT OF THE BLOG

     The format of a printed newspaper’s writing structure will be more formal compared to a blog structure.

DIAGRAM 3. 3 : FONT AND THE STYLES OF WRITING OF THE NEWSPAPERS

     In the blog, the bloggers are more expressive in giving out and at the same time, writing their ideas and opinions. Adding in colourful images, smileys, audio and also videos enlightens this type of document (Levin, n.d). Apart from that, frequent updates can be posted and the curiosity can be cleared quickly. It is a quite and easy way to produce where ‘up-to-a-minute’ information is provided. However, the print documents gives a delay replies on curiousity and the interaction level is minimum. (284 words)

REFERENCES
Natalie 2009, Print Vs. Digital : An Ongoing Debate, viewed on 22 August 2011, <http://chesprocon.com/marine-industry/print-digital-debate>

Blitman. E 2008, The Benefits of Large Offset Printing Compared to Digital is Saving Money, viewed on 22 August 2011, <http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Benefits-of-Large-Offset-Printing-Compared-to-Digital-is-Saving-Money&id=1815987>

Levin.H n.d, Print Vs Digital, viewed on 22 August 2011, <http://2010.newsweek.com/top-10/heated-rivalries/print-vs-digital.html>

Blogging Issue 4 : New Forms of Media Publishing

     Traditional advertising is having a great deal of competition from other form of advertising in recent days such as the online advertising. It is also known as internet advertising or web advertising. This advertisement able to target specific market while consumers are surfing the internet. One of the popular Web 2.0 tools that has increasing the number of advertisement is Facebook (Wauters, 2011).

     Facebook is a social network where people can connect with others from all over the world. Traditional advertising are not totally dead as there are still lots of billboards and posters can be seen everyday. This form of advertising does hold its importance. However, digital era plays a lot of forces and online advertisement has improved. More people are now spending less money on buying magazines and newspapers as they prefer online materials such as blogs, and social networks, which also give a way for advertisement. Facebook especially is so user friendly that anyone at a minimum cost can place the advertisement. Others who also started corporate or business pages also benefits from this digital advertisement.

DIAGRAM 2. 0 : STATISTICS ON FACEBOOK

     Based on the media dependency, to create the need, interests and motives in a person, media system should interact with audiences. If we compare traditional media which most of the time lives individual impact, digital advertisement able to give a broader impact on audiences. This is because through online advertisement, most of the time people will share their ideas and opinions, which will lead to a holistic view of a certain advertisement (Scifo, 2010). Therefore, digital advertisements do have altered communication through the new media ecosystem. (264 words)

REFERENCES
Scifo. G 2010, 10 Advantages of Online Advertising, viewed on 22 August 2011, <http://www.georgescifo.com/2010/05/10-advantages-of-online-advertising/>

Wauters. R 2011, It’s a Facebook World, viewed on 22 August 2011,

<http://www.socialnetworkingwatch.com/all_social_networking_statistics/>

Blogging Issue 3 : Blogging Community

     Blogging community can be defined as a community where people connect and exchange information using web tools where a group of people with similar goals and interests meet (Owyang, 2007). Based on White (2006), she has traced three types of blogging communities, which are the single blog or blogger centric community, topic centric community and the boundaried community.

DIAGRAM 1.0 : TYPES OF BLOGGING COMMUNITIES

     The first type of blogging community is the blogger centric community where the central authority is the blog owner and the topic focus depends on the blogger but not the community. Moreover, the community maybe disappears without the blogger.

DIAGRAM 1. 1 : BLOGGER CENTRIC COMMUNITY

     The second blog is known as topic centric community. This form of blog is identified based on the particular party or issue. The identity of the blog is shared between the identity of the blogger and the topic of the blog. Besides that, there is a lot of back channel conversations, which happen between posts, comments and links.

DIAGRAM 1. 2 : TOPIC CENTRIC COMMUNITY

     The third community will be the boundaried community. Here, each blogger has a profile that provides a clear identity and the boundary of the community is emphasized. Bloggers in the community uses other tools to connect to each other and the interactions also take place outside the blog. The focus is on ongoing interactions between the members and the agreement across the community.

DIAGRAM 1. 3 : BOUNDARIED COMMUNITY

     I would like discuss about one blog which is the ‘Global Voices’ which falls under the boundaried community as analysed by White (2006). This blog works as a platform for more than 300 bloggers to become a community in a single blog. As mentioned by White, this blog allows community building where it helps people to speak out online. Moreover, the content I based on bloggers is either focused or all over places. (285 words)

REFERENCES

Denise 2009, How do you build community? , viewed on 22 August 2011, <http://www.blogher.com/how-do-you-build-community >

Owyang J 2007, Defining the term: online community, viewed on 21 August 2010, http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2007/12/28/defining-the-term-community/>

White. N 2006, Blogs and community-launching a new paradigm for online community, going communal, edition 11, viewed on 19 August 2011, <http://kt.flexiblelearning.net.au/tkt2006/edition-11-editorial/blogs-and-community-%E2%80%93-launching-a-new-paradigm-for-online-community>

Blogging Issue 2 : Classification of Blogs

     Blogging became to spread during 1999 and the years following. The short form of blog was coined from the word weblog (Blockstar, 2006). The increasing amount of blogs leads to classification of blogs by creating different terms. Taxonomy of blogs has been labored as it has been classified in an ordered system. Subject matter, device, media type and status of publisher are the main aspects that have been looked into thoroughly worked through and thus creating the taxonomy.

     Simon (2008) and Oech (2007), media analyst and author respectively, have come up with the taxonomy of blog that differs and somehow able to categorized the current blogs. Simon categorized the blog into nine different types based on the content or subject matter of the blog itself. Digest blog, Diary blog and Popular Mechanics blog are to name a few. However, Oech came up with four different types of blogs, which are based on values of the bloggers. The four types are distraction blog, archive blog, conversation blog and democratic blog. He managed to classify it in the blogosphere based on the motivations of a particular blogger has towards creating the blogs.

TABLE 2 : 4 MAIN TYPES OF BLOGS

     In my opinion, I would choose subject matter to classify the blog. This is because when someone wants to read or search for a particular thing, the topic will strike the mind first. For instance, if a person is looking for a movie review, a person will automatically looking for the blog which falls under a topic of ‘entertainment’. It can be vlog, linklog, sktechlog, tumblelog or even weblogs. Hence, I feel classifying the blogs according to the subject matter is important, as audience tend to search by topic. Therefore, I prefer Simon’s taxonomy of blog as it categorized the blogs based on the topics or certain field.

(292 words)

REFERENCES
Ariani. G. 2008, Classification of Blogs & Example(s) of Blogging Communities, viewed on 20 August 2011, <http://geeta-ariani.blogspot.com/2008/05/classification-of-blogs-examples-of.html>

Blockstar 2006, Blog History in Timeline Form, viewed on 19 August 2011, <http://blockstar.com/blog/blog_timeline.html>

History News Network 2011, What Is a Blog?, viewed on 21 August 2011, <http://hnn.us/articles/1572.html>

Oech. R.V 2007, A taxonomy of blogs, viewed on 20 August 2011, <http://blog.creativethink.com/2007/03/a_taxonomy_of_b.html >

Simons. M 2008, Towards a taxonomy of blogs, viewed on 20 August 2011, <http://www.apo.org.au/commentary/towards-taxonomy-blogs-0>

Blogging Issue 1 : Current Phenomenon of Blogging

     According to Sobel (2010), the size of global sphere has doubled every 5 months over the last years. They do not only blog but participate in other Web2.0 activities such as Twitter and Facebook.

TABLE 1 : PERCENTAGE OF BLOGGER'S AGE

     These bloggers have their own purposes to be achieved in blogging. The notable growth of mobile blogging (Moblog) is the key trend these days. Even though the smart phones and tablets are still the newbies, but most of the people expect them to grow larger. It is stated that 25% of the bloggers are already engaged in Moblog. Besides that, 40% of bloggers who blogs from their smart phones or tablets feel that Moblog encourage short posts and spontaneous one (Sobel, 2010). Another important trend is the power of women and mothers' bloggers and their impact is on the brands. This survey was enhance by interviewing 15 most influential women in the bloggers sphere.

     In the Middle East, bloggers are mostly expatriate, talking about intellectual and emotional aspects while some were motivated to feel a gap in the Internet content. In Malaysia, 28% of the Malaysian Top 50 Bloggers write about personal stuffs, followed by politics and technology.

The most prevalent blogs in Malaysia, Asia and Europe :

1. Political Blogs

2. Personal or Social Blogs

3. Fashion Blogs

4. Corporate Blogs

     The benefits of these blogs can vary as it gives bloggers freedom of speech politically. Many people voice out their opinions and ideas regarding current state of politics through blogs, which consequently attract many readers locally and globally. Besides that, corporate blogs, which meant for business purposes give personal benefits. People introduce their business and products through blogs and thus making money from it. For instance, a travel blog can be both corporate and also personal one for the blogger who is a tour guide. Here, he is not only promoting his business but also share his personal experiences throughout his life. (297 words)


REFERENCES

Ali. A 2011, Giving Birth to the Middle East’s Blogosphere, viewed on 17 August 2011, <http://www.psfk.com/2011/01/giving-birth-to-the-middle-easts-blogosphere.html>

Gaman 2007, 50 Most Influential Blogs in Malaysia, viewed on 18 August 2011, <http://www.sabahan.com/2007/02/06/50-most-influential-blogs-in-malaysia/>

Hughes. D 2009, Blogging’s global impact and the future of Blogging, viewed on 19 August 2011,<http://technorati.com/blogging/article/day-5-twitter-global-impact-and/page-2/>

McGann. R 2004, The Blogosphere By the Numbers, viewed on 16 August 2011, <http://www.clickz.com/clickz/stats/1709780/the-blogosphere-by-numbers>

Sobel, J 2010, State of the Blogosphere 2010 Introduction, viewed on 17 August 2011, <http://technorati.com/blogging/article/state-of-the-blogosphere-2010-introduction/>