Blogging have developed itself into a big craze in Asia. Blogging is a social phenomenon where people maintain and build their social connections and the express themselves. According to Microsoft, nearly half of those online in Asia have a blog. An alarming 50% of people regard blogs as a reliable news source showed in their research. However only a small amount of blog have high visitor to their site with 40% having less then 10 visitors a day.
Is personal blogging is a waste of time?
Well in general blogs aren’t viewed as a waste of time because people usually do it for a reason and feels gratified from blogging, thus making it rewarding for them to continue blogging. While most blogger are there to keep in touch with family and friends, there are other who uses blog to achieve some other objective like Jeff Ooi’s blog that provide Malaysian with more in-depth details about cover-up in Malaysia as mainstream media doesn’t cover them at all.
To me, blogging is last free medium in Malaysia which we are allowed to write whatever we want and however we want it. Every other channel is usually blocked due to political reasons and Malaysian inability to accept criticism, thus making the new media as our last resort to voice out. Blogs are as useful as the people who write them, making a very idea to generalize personal blogging as a waste of time.
Variations of blogging
- By media type
o Linklog (links to other sites)
o Sketchblog (portfolio or sketches
o Photoblog (a photo blog)
o Tumblelogs. (mixture of medias)
- By device
- Genre
o Travel blogs
o Fashion blogs
o Project blogs
o Splog (spamfest)
o Food blogs
Text blogs with images are still the dominant blogs types around however there are more and more vlogs appearing as technology continues to improve. Splogs are also on the rise as more and more people are trying to milk the new media for all its worth. According to Charles C. Mann, 56% of active english blogs are splogs and are compromising the effectiveness of search engines.
Blogging community
For many bloggers, the motivation to update their blogs are derived from the community of the blogosphere that they exist in. The community they formed bring people together and usually form a strong friendship due to the similarity they share. Some sites even help forms a community such as Petaling Street, it’s a Malaysian portal blog which bloggers updates it when they update their own site. Apart from bloggers who maintain their blogs for a family audience, most blogger belong to a certain community as a natural social circle expansion.
Print vs. Online
Writing for an online medium is quite different compared to print. Following the many thoeries of Jakob Nielsen, he basically says that web writing should concise, scannable, and objective. Which surprisingly is quite similar to writing a hard news story except for the language use. Both needs to be concise, short, simple, inverted piramid writing and credibility. Of course the similarities doesn’t extend towards other print writtings as though are usually longer and often have a tendency to play with words.
The only difference I notice is that the design of text placement is very different. Web writing consist of a lot of segments that divide the article to make easier for readers to locate the specific thing that they are looking for.
Another point to take note is that when writing on the internet, articles are catered to a huge audience as all sorts of people surf the net therefore it is very important to be able to write for people with varying level of interests. While it very difficult to write to such a large audience, multi-level writing captures the best web writing techniques into a logical layout process. (Wallace, 1999)
References
1. Mann, C, 2006. Spam + Blogs = Trouble. Viewed on 4 June 2007 at http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.09/splogs.html
2. Microsoft, 2006. Blogging Phenomenon Sweeps Asia. Viewed on 4 June 2007 at http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/11-28-2006/0004480819&EDATE=
3. Nielsen, J, 1997. How Users Read on the Web. Viewed on 4 June 2007 at http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9710a.html
4. Wallace, N, 1999. Web Writing for Many Interest Levels. Viewed on 4 June 2007 at http://www.e-gineer.com/v1/articles/web-writing-for-many-interest-levels.htm
No comments:
Post a Comment