3.2: Blogs

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Definition: A journal-style web site that lists the posts backwards with a timestamp. Some blogs are collaborative, and some are kept up by one individual.

Blogs are the newest genre on the scene, and they are used in teaching, the corporate world, the land of politics; they might be utilized to showcase daily outfits in a fashion blog or recipes in a cooking blog or share inspirational stories in a blog about parenthood; if a person has a passion, and wants to openly journal about it, he/she should consider starting a blog.

Blogs are easy to create. All it takes is one idea. Anyone can do it.

How Do Blogs Work?²⁶

Blogs are created via blog hosting websites such as Blogger, WordPress, or Edublogs. Typically, a user registers a username and password, picks a blog title and URL, and then can immediately begin his or her first post, or entry.

A post can include a combination or writing, photos, videos, links, and other embedded materials. Once the post is ready, the author can instantly publish it to the blog. Other people are then able to view the post (depending on settings--a blogger can choose to make his or her blog private, public, or shared with certain people).

Readers can subscribe to the blog and receive updates in their e-mail or RSS reader. Posts can be shared via social networking tools such as Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr. Bloggers can also enable commenting, which means readers can write responses to blog posts that will appear along with the post for other readers to see.

All it takes is one click to post or respond to another person’s blog.

CATEGORIES²⁷

In addition to Class Blogs or Teacher Blogs – mentioned previously – here are other specific sorts of blogs:

Political Blogs: These blogs are often tied to a large media or news corporation, such as "The Caucus" (affiliated with The New York Times), "CNN Political Ticker", and the National Review's "The Corner."
Gossip Blogs: These blogs can greatly be attributed to the popularity of Perez Hilton, a celebrity and entertainment media gossip blogger. His blog posts contain tabloid photographs of celebrities, accompanied by captions and comments. Web traffic to the often controversial and raunchy Perez Hilton site skyrocketed in 2005, prompting similar gossip blogs, such as TMZ.com, Jezebel, and the Superficial, to gain popularity.
Food Blogs: These blogs allow foodies and aspiring chefs alike to share recipes, cooking techniques, and food porn, for others to enjoy. Food blogs serve as a sort of online cookbook for followers, often containing restaurant critiques, product reviews, and step-by-step photography for recipes.
Fashion Blogs: These blogs became their own larger than life sub-community following the explosive growth of the blogosphere. Besides fashion news blogs, street style blogs have also become exceedingly popular. Many Bloggers consider updating their blog a full-time job. These style mavens are able to earn considerable livings through advertising, selling their photos and even providing their services as photographers, stylists, and guest designers.
Health Blogs: These blogs cover health topics, events and/or related content of the health industry and the general community. They can cover diverse health related concerns such as nutrition and diet, fitness, weight control, diseases, disease management, societal trends affecting health, analysis about health, business of health and health research.

MICROBLOGS

Microblogs are a relatively new phenomenon and are a special form of blogging. The most famous microblog is Twitter, but also alternatives like Tumblr or Google Buzz exist. The main idea behind a microblog is to restrict the size of a message to 140 characters. This comes from its original connection to texting (SMS). In today’s society with its general tendency toward information overflow this is a welcome trend. This is also why it is very popular with mobile devices.

Microblogging is essentially a broadcast medium, meaning you write a message, which then will be broadcast to all your followers. It is not unusual that you also follow your followers. It can not only be used to exchange textual messages, but also links, images and videos.

EXAMPLE:

This image is a screenshot from the fargobradshaw blog.

Assignments and Questions to Consider

Create five blog entries revolving around your life. (Click here for an example.) At a minimum, include the following criteria: Five quality entries of content and five accompanied pieces of info: charts, memes, images.

26 "User-Generated Content in Education/Blogs." Wikibooks, The Free Textbook Project. 2 Apr 2018, 12:02 UTC. 7 May 2019, 19:15 . Licensed CC-BY-SA.

27 "Social Web/Blogs." Wikibooks, The Free Textbook Project. 17 Dec 2014, 14:26 UTC. 8 May 2019, 19:17 . Licensed CC-BY-SA.

How Do Blogs Work?26

CATEGORIES27

MICROBLOGS

EXAMPLE:

How Do Blogs Work?²⁶

CATEGORIES²⁷