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Thursday, May 1, 2008

The Blogging Phenomenon and Benefits

Blogs as a current cyber phenomenon

Blogging has become a huge trend and sensation among people from all walks of life. Blogging, in general understanding, is a way to express thoughts and opinions and to establish and strengthen social relations among people.

Blogosphere Size

As according to the Multiplatform, the term 'Blogosphere' is defined as 'the totality of weblogs or blog-related webs' or in layman's terms, a blogging community. David Sifry (2006) of Technorati stated that the state of blogosphere is ever expanding and doubles in size every 6 months. About 175, 000 new weblogs are created each day. In the Blog Herald survey of blog counts in February 2006, an estimated total of 200 million blogs existed in the World Wide Web. Thus, it is safe to assume that by today, the figure will have increased to an astounding number.

Trends and Types

There are various trends of blogging, including social, political and economical blogging. Social blogging include blogs like personal, entertainment, technology and food blogs. Political blogging, like the term suggests, include topics like politics and world events while economical blogging involves corporate and marketing blogs.

According to Microsoft, social blogging is the most compelling trend in Asia, where personal blogs are by far the most popular. Most people create blogs to update family and friends about their personal lifestyle as well as to express themselves. The most influential blog in Malaysia, according to 50 Most Influential Blogs In Malaysia is Kenny Sia's blog which is a personal blog.


Screenshot of Kenny Sia's blog

Nevertheless, blogging trends in United Kingdom differ slightly from Malaysia in a way where the most popular kind of blogs are technology blogs as according to Stuart Brown (2006).

Blogging benefits to the Malaysian community

In general, Malaysia is not a country of free-press where information dissemination by the press, be it in print or online-print is highly controlled by the Malaysian government. Therefore, leaving blogs the only free medium of information. Political blogs like Jeff Ooi's blog are influential in a way where information that are 'left out' or 'over-looked' by the mainstream press can be found in his blog. The community benefits from Jeff Ooi by freely obtaining information from his blog. Besides that, blogging is a way for the people to learn how to express themselves and give rise to cyber literacy.


Screenshot of Jeff Ooi's blog

Reference List:

1.
50 Most Influential Blogs in Malaysia 2007, Sabahan.com, viewed on 1 May 2008 at http://www.sabahan.com/2007/02/06/50-most-influential-blogs-in-malaysia/

2. All About Multiplatform 2007, Television Bureau of Advertising, viewed 30 April 2008 at http://www.tvb.org/multiplatform/Multiplatform_Glossary.asp

3. Brown, S 2006, Leading Average: Top Blog Trends, Modern Life, viewed 30 April 2008 at http://www.modernlifeisrubbish.co.uk/article/leading-average-top-blog-trends

4. Duncan 2006, The Blog Herald Blog Count February 2006: 200 Million Blogs In Existence, Blog Herald, viewed 1 May 2008, at http://www.blogherald.com/2006/02/02/the-blog-herald-blog-count-february-2006-200-million-blogs-in-existence/


5. Microsoft 2006, Blogging Phenomenon Sweeps Asia, viewed on 1 May 2008 at http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/11-28-2006/0004480819&EDATE=

6. Sifry, D 2006,
State of the Blogosphere, April 2006 Part 1: On Blogosphere Growth, Sifry's Alerts, viewed 30 April 2008 at http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/000432.html

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

kenny sia is my favorite! =) try quaintly.net she's awesome too.