The Blogging Phenomenon (II)

Classification of blogs

There are an unaccountable number of blogs on the internet as exemplified by the previous post. Furthermore, these blogs could be categorized and classified into various types, which defer according to the source of the research.

Wikipedia, on one hand, cites that there are six different categories of blogs, namely:

i. personal blogs

ii. corporate blogs

iii. questions blogs

iv. blogs by different media forms

v. blogs utilizing various devices

vi. blogs according to genre.

At the other end of the spectrum, however, Australian freelance journalist Margaret Simons (2008) believes that there should be nine different types of blogs on the World Wide Web, which are:

1. pamphleteering blogs
2. digest blogs
3. advocacy blogs
4. popular mechanics blogs
5. exhibition blogs
6. gatewatcher blogs
7. diary blogs
8. advertisement blogs
9. news blogs.

Even mentioning the different types could be a mouthful to remember, let alone to pinpoint the various uniqueness of each blog compared to the other. Even within the same type of blogs, there are differences of style, format and topic discussed that will attract different readers.

Personally I would refer to the style of writing and presentation of its entries that would set apart a good blog from an average one. Although the particular topic might not be of much interest to me, I might get hooked by the author’s style of writing that could somehow sway my thoughts into liking and eventually believing what is preached on the blog.

Reference

(2008). Blog. Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog. Last accessed 27 October 2008.

(2008). A taxonomy of blogs. Available: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2008/2372882.htm#transcript. Last accessed 27 October 2008.