Classification of Blogs & Ways to Building Blogging Communities

Classification of Blogs

Blogs in general can range from any field depending on the topic is being discussed. Different blog has different target audience. The examples are categorized as below.

By subject:

1. Fashion - tictactoe28
2. Food - chicksandpea

(Source: Chickandpea.com)

3. Politics - limkitsiang
4. Law - abovethelaw
5. Travel - vkeong
6. Sport - sport-law

By device:

- Moblog (Mobile phone blogging) - Flickr

(Source: Lowyat.com)

By media type:

1. Vlog (Video blogs) - YouTube
2. Linklog (Collection of links or URLs) - Shoppingreviewbyand
3. Splog (Spam blogs) - The Panic Blog
4. Sketchlog (Collection of sketches/graphics) - Deviantart
5. Tumblelog (Blogs with mixed-media) - Tumblr
6. Photolog (Collection of photos) - Photobucket
7. Podcast (Collection of audio recordings in MP3 format) - Imeem
8. Liveblog (Blogs that cover live events) - Engadget

By status of publishers:

1. Business blog - Blogbusinessworld
2. Corporate blogs - Redfin Corporate Blog

Australian author and media analyst, Margaret Simons classified blogs into 9 categories. Funnell and Davies (2008)

1. Pamphleteering blogs
   
2. Digest blogs
   
3. Advocacy blogs
4. Popular Mechanics blogs
5. Exhibition blogs
6. Gatewater blogs
7. Diary
   
8. Advertisement
9. News blogs

Margaret Simon’s classifications are academical and specific. A simpler classification from wikipedia are as below. Wikipedia (2008)

1. Personal blogs
2. Corporate blogs
3. by Media Type
4. by Device
5. by Genre

Many blogs are combinations of styles, which makes identifying unique types difficult. At this point, we look at topic style, format and the engaged audiece to differentiate the types of blog. For instance, you visit a blog and see most of the entries are about food, therefore, we can know that it is a food blog.

Blogging Communities

Blogging communities are formed through common interest, they are a group of social supporter to each who shared links, tags, photos, video and even exchange ideas and comments. For instance, Malaysia's largest youth opinion community - Youthsays.com is a form of blogging communities, their main audience are of course no other than the youth.


According to Kirkpatrick (2006), it is a social networking system where bloggers and their readers are able to connect and and interact with each other based on interests and personal similarities. To create a blogging community, create a blog of our own then use tools like permalink, tags and comments to link to other blog. The engagement is what it counts when 'joining' a blogging community.

References

Funnell, A & Davies, A 2008, A taxanomy of blogs, The Media Report, access on 30 May 2009, <http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2008/2372882.htm#transcript>

Kirkpatrick, M 2006, MyBlogLog: Readers Network Around Their Favorite Blogs, TechCrunch access on 31 May 2009,
<http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/10/19/mybloglog-readers-network-around-their-favorite-blogs/>

Wikipedia 2009, Blog, access on 30 May 2009,
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog>