An example of a blog.
Actually the art of blogging goes all the way back in 1983 when an individual by the name Brian E. Redman posted summaries of interesting postings and threads happening somewhere else on the net. This discussion forum named mod.ber was exceptional as they had feature links as well where these characteristics were strongly associated with the term blog. However, the first usage of this term weblog was during a conference on August 14, 1995 from the delivery of a paper by two lecturers from Bond University. This term was though popularized by Jorn Barger of the weblog Robot Wisdom (http://www.robotwisdom.com/) in December 1997 (Blog Herald 2005). The origins of modern blogging were often argued as about what blogging is.
Blogs had been mushrooming in the cyber world extravagantly with only a dozen blogs in 1999 (Jensen 2003) compared with approximately 110 million blogs tracked by Technorati (http://technorati.com/) as of November 2007. In Asia, the trend to blog has come into sight not long after it all started although blogging is still not as common in Asia compared to other parts of the world.
Blogs emerged as a diary with words at first but then came the birth of subcategories of blogs such as vlog where it is blog plus videos and photolog where the blogger uses pictures to blog. Following up, it sprouted linklogs, artlogs, tumblelogs and others. The different genres that were available in the blogsphere were political blogs, travel blogs, fashion blogs, Splog (spam blog) and etc.
An example of a vlog (left) and a photolog (right)
Over time, blogs have not only become a trend among Internet users but are being used for other purposes such as promotional purposes. Corporate blogs are different from normal blogs as they are published and used by the organization to achieve its organizational objectives. Some examples are Dell (http://direct2dell.com/one2one/default.aspx) where they convey messages, solutions to computer problems as well as the company’s latest information to the public through this blog.
Blogging undeniably is barely unknown since even corporate sectors use them now. Thus, communities are set up to connect bloggers from all walks of life and to share common interest as well as ideas. One instance of a blogging community is the Bloggers United which was spawned to defend bloggers and the freedom of expression after the case of Jeff Ooi. The case of Jeff Ooi can be obtained from Global Voices Online.
Bloggers United Logo
Blogs enable the author to be able to use their creativity on designing their own blogs. Every blog has the same characteristic which is framing where elements are connected or disconnected signifying that they belong together in some sense (Kress and van Leeuwen 2006). The columns for the post, the profile, links and other features are divided appropriately for better legibility since Kress & van Leeuwen (2006) said that framing is one of the key elements of a good composition. Hence, blogs are a good way for spreading messages with the flexibility of design and content.
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Reference:
Blog Herald 2005, Duncan, viewed 21 September 2007. http://www.blogherald.com/2005/03/06/a-short-history-of-blogging/
Emerging Alternatives: A Brief History of Weblogs 2003, Mallory Jensen, viewed on 21 September 2007. http://cjrarchives.org/issues/2003/5/blog-jensen.asp?printerfriendly=yes
Kress, G & van Leeuwen, T 2006, Reading images: The grammar of visual design, 2nd edn, Routledge, London.
Microsoft® Encarta® Online Dictionary 2007, Msn Encarta, viewed on 20 September 2007. http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_/weblog.html
Technorati 2007, Technorati, viewed on 18 September 2007. http://www.technorati.com/about
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