Good Design

Diana Reep (2006) mentioned that a good design must have 4 criteria’s which is balance, proportions, consistency and sequence. Below is the 3 screenshots of the slides which I am going to comment on.

All three slides use the same design and come with a heading. This fulfills the criteria of consistent. Size of the headings and text are same in all slides which is proportion. Lastly, the texts are arranged in a sequential order for a better reading. The color of the background matches the color of the texts which does not interfered with each other. Reep (2006) states that the color in the document creates an image and assists the reader to transition through the document to find important information. That is why the headings for each slides are in red. Overall, the slides are simple yet informative.

In conclusion, the arrangement of text and the use of colour are very important for readers to fluently read and efficiently receive the information delivered.

References:

Reep, DC. 2006, ‘Chp 6: Document Design,’ in Technical Writing, 6th ed., Pearson Edu, Inc., New York, p.133-172.

New forms of media publishing

New forms of media have been arising to replace the traditional media. People read newspaper, books and magazines online, watch the 8pm news that we missed using Vlog, and even view friend’s vacation picture using social media such as Facebook.

When Twitter and Plurk was introduced, it influenced people from the blogging community to blog less and jump wagon to this microblogging community as alternative media.

The most widely used and famous media publisher is Youtube. Founded in February 2005, YouTube is the world's most popular online video community, allowing millions of people to discover, watch and share originally-created videos (Youtube 2010)

Vlogs can be very useful at times. We get to see and listen to the subject that wanted to be expressed. For example, a vlogger posted a video of the Myanmar riots which clearly expressed the situation more than what a pen can.

(Source: Vlogblog.com)

New trend as it is but it did not accepted by various countries such as China where citizen journalism are not allowed. Googles, Twitter, Facebook and blogging are strictly banned by the local internet censorship board. (BBC News)


References:

BBC News 2002: China Blocking Google . viewed 5 th April 2010. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2231101.stm

Youtube 2010: About Youtube viewed 5th April 2010. http://www.youtube.com/t/about

The community

‘Blog’ is only a recently developed word in the scheme of languages, but it feels like it’s been around a long time. During the last few years, with the explosion of platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, blogs have taken on a new dimension and many have formed their own ‘online communities’.

To expand the community, White (2006) states that “bloggers are connected to one another through hyperlinks in the form of blogrolls, links to other blogs within blog posts, tagging, aggregated feeds, trackbacks and comments”

She proposed that there are 3 kinds of blogging community that exist.

Single Blog Centric Community

First is Single Blog Centric Community. There is a blogger that is the hub of attention and others will focus on him. Example of this genre of blogger is Kennysia.com or Xiaxue.blogspot.com.

(Source: White 2006)

Central Connecting Topic Community

Second type is Central Connecting Topic Community. It is in a form of network and linking bloggers by common passion or topic. White explained that “This form is exemplified by groups such as food bloggers, mummy bloggers, travel bloggers and political bloggers with a particular party or issue identification”. Example of Central connecting blogs is Limkitsiang.com or kampungboycitygal.com.

(Source: White 2006)

Boundaried Communities

Lastly is the Boundaried Communities which typically members register and 'join' the community and are offered the chance to create a blog. This boundary makes them the closest form to traditional forum based communities. Forms of boundaried communities is Starblog.com which authored by few bloggers.

(Source: White 2006)


References:

White, N. 2006, Blogs and community launching a new paradigm for online community?, The Knowledge Tree, viewed 4 th April 2010,

Taxonomy of Blogs

Google search taxonomy of blogs and few millions of results is achieved within few seconds. There are many different views on how many types of blogs out there by many experts and also unofficial. One of them is Simons who classified blogs into 9 categories which is,

Pamphleteering Blogs

Digest blog

Advocacy blog

The popular mechanics blog

The exhibition blog

The gatewatcher blog

The diary

The advertisement

Her system of taxonomy is based on the contents and functions whereas Tom Haskins categorized blogs into 4 kinds which take consideration of author’s motive to blogs and their value to other bloggers. He mentioned that different motives for blogging yield different impacts on the rest of us. Some blogs reflect a consistent motive while others change character often .

(Source: Technorati.com)

And lastly, Narayanan Madhavan divided blogs into 8 types based on media’s perspective and appearance of blogs.

• Sanity blog

  Identity blog

  Vanity blog

  Humanity blog

  Theme blog

  Professional blog

  Corporate blog

  Project blog
  

Blogs available on the internet now is hardly able to classify into any category because of the combinations of many contents and according to Sussman, each blog contains at least 5 genres of topics.

(Source: Technorati.com)

There are many more category like vlog (video blog), linklog, sketchlog, tumblelog and moblog used by various bloggers. Each taxonomy focuses on different specifications to be categorised and as time evolves, it will not be strange if there is more categories of blogs introduced in future.

References:

Simons, M. 2008, Towards a taxonomy of blogs, Australian Policy Online, viewed 2th April 2010, http://www.apo.org.au/commentary/towards-taxonomy-blogs-0

Haskins, T. 2007, Different motivations for blogging, Growing, Changing, Learning, Creating, viewed 3th April 2010, http://growchangelearn.blogspot.com/2007/03/different-motivations-for-blogging.html

Madhavan, N. 2008, Taxonomy of blogs- a media perspective, Authorstream, viewed 3th April 2010, http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/madhavan-73965-taxonomy-blogs-media-perspective-journalism-digital-publishing-nanopublishing-citizen-portals-june-7-news-reports-ppt-powerpoint/

Sussman, M. 2009, Day 4: Blogging revenues, brands, and blogs :SOTB 2009, Technorati, viewed 9th April 2010, http://www.technorati.com/blogging/article/day-4-blogging-revenues-brands-and/

The Blogging Phenomenon.

In today’s internet world, blogging is not a fresh trend anymore. In Technorati’s state of blogosphere report, there is about 112 million blogs in June 2008 and is increasing daily. The Star Online reported that there is about 500,000 active bloggers in Malaysia, ranked among the highest in the world after Indonesia and European Union.

The trend that is emerging is multiple author blogs and mostly is monetized (Problogger 2008). Bloggers are receiving extra income from blogging and the below graph shows how blogger generate revenue from blogging.

(Source: Technorati.com)


On average, professional and corporate bloggers are more likely to include search ads, display ads, and affiliate marketing on their blogs. There were some global differences. Music is more popular and politics is less popular in Asia, while personal, lifestyle, and religious topics are less popular in Europe. (White)

(Source: Technorati.com)


According to Ramadass which uses the statistics from Research Conducted by MSN Live Spaces across Asia, bloggers in Korea and India favours business blogs while in Malaysia, 20% of Malaysians voted for Blogs focusing on politics, compared to 14% on average across Asia.

Because freedom of speech is limited and controlled, blogging on politics has become an important platform for people to voice out their opinions. For example, the recent election held in Iran, 46% of the people agree that the Iranian election made a significant impact globally and blogosphere was a source for reliable, accurate information about the protest of the Iranian election.


(Source: Technorati.com)


Similar trends were found in the US presidential election too.

(Source: Technorati.com)

References:

Rowse, D. 2008. 5 Emerging Trends in Blogging Viewed 31 March 2010. http://www.problogger.net/archives/2008/05/16/5-emerging-trends-in-blogging/

White, D. 2009, Day 2: The What and Why of Blogging :SOTB 2009, Technorati, viewed 31 April 2010, http://technorati.com/blogging/article/day-2-the-what-and-why/page-2/

Ramadass, V. 2006, Blogging phenomenon sweeps Asia, Lowyat.NET: Malaysia’s Tech Enthusiast Resource Community, viewed 9th April 2010, http://www.lowyat.net/v2/latest/blogging-phenomenon-sweeps-asia.html

Sussman, M. 2009, Day 4: Blogging revenues, brands, and blogs :SOTB 2009, Technorati, viewed 9th April 2010, http://www.technorati.com/blogging/article/day-4-blogging-revenues-brands-and/.

The Star Online (2008). Blogging in Malaysia ranks among highest in the world. viewed 31 March 2010 . http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/4/3/nation/20827588&sec=nation