What is a Blog?
BLOG [weB log] is something which is handled/managed by a individual and it consists of some user written content, visitors entered comments and a platform where a individual posts his own reviews/articles generally called as ‘Blog Posts. A Blog can be of different formats ie Textual, Music [Mp3 Blog], PhotoBlog, ArtBlog, VideoBlog, AudioBlog[Podcast] etc and it depends on the individuals choice to build a blog on any of the above format though most of the blogs are in Texual format.
There are a total of 112.8 million blogs [Technorati June 2008] on the web and increasing daily which are updated with different type of content from different source. A Blog consists of information posted by the ‘Blogger’ with a combination of ‘Text’, ‘Images’ & ‘Videos’. Whenever a blogger makes a post on his blog, viewers read these posts add their comments on these blog posts. Its simply like a personal diary which can be written by anyone with their own personal views of anything (or) everything.
Types of Blogging
Personal Blogging :
This is the case where in a person/individual starts a new blog and writes his own theories, experiance’s, reviews or anything which the blogger would like to write about and share with everyone else in the public platform called the Internet. Personal Bloggers generally write their experiances or their own feedback on any topic and these blogs are generally read by their friends, social network, business colleagues etc and if someone would like to add a reply to the same, they would Add a Comment to the same post. You can find some good Personal Blogs which are written by Celebrities like Amitabh Bachchan, Aamir Khan and Perez Hilton and are generally written by individual person, but the fan following brings in huge number of comments in every post and these can even reach thousands of comments every post. The content of a personal blog is generally owned by the blogger is its limited to their own views and does not directly/indirectly hurt someone/someone’s business.
Corporate Blogging :
Generally most business have a static kind of website ie a website which is not updated/rarely updated and has the business information and general products/services info but now the trend has changed and many companies have started adding a blog to their corporate websites and the CEO’s generally update their blogs with the latest events at their end, upcoming product launches, special promo’s/discounts/coupons, openings and awards etc. Here are some corporate blogs which can give you a idea – Google Blog, General Motors Blog, Yahoo Blog, DreamHost Blog , Southwest Airlines, Prosper Blog, HostGator Blog & Mozilla Blog. The corporate blogs are generally not updated by the CEO’s but are blogged by any corporate officials who has the marketing, branding or public relations related updates of their company.
Photo Blog :
PhotoBlogs are kind of blogs which are sourced by photos and published in the form of blogs ie the latest photos listed in the top and the older photos moved to the archieve section. Generally these photolog’s are developed on self hosted individual domains, or on free photo blogging services like Flickr or Fotolog. These blogs have a Content Management System in their backend which allows the photo-bloggers/photographers to upload images and manage their blogs. Here are some good photoblogs which can give you more idea about them – Sam Javanrouh, I Can Has Cheezburger, DotComPals Photo Blog, Stuck in Customs, Chromasia
Mobile Blogging :
There are many other ways you can start your own blog. If you have got a Mobile phone with a internet connection you can start a MoBlog also referred as a Blog written by a mobile phone / PDA/ mobile device. You can use a mobile phone like Nokia N95 which has got 3rd party compatible applications to run wordpress based blogs using a mobile phone. MoBlogging can allow you to post articles in the form of text,images, audio & video format and offers you with instant publication. You can also signup with services like CellSpin to get started with your own MoBlog. generally this is used by people who like to update their blogs with pictures taken from their cell phones.
Blog Comments :
A Blog is a system which is based on User-generated content and has a option where the readers/viewers of the blogs can add their comments/views on any post. The commentors are generally expected to add comments which are not againt the blogger or his posts because if that happens, the blogger has complete rights to delete these comments, its similar to stopping some uninvited guests at your place who do wrong acts. The blogger has complete rights over the comments which he can Approve, Keep in Pending, Mark as SPAM or Delete. Its not a compulsion that every blog would have a comment section but in most cases the blogs have a comment form using which the readers/visitors can use to add their views. The Comments section is generally located below the posts and asks the user to add their basic information like Name, Email, Website & Comments.
Blogging Community :
Blogging is generally a practice of writing a post using a Blogging CMS and getting comments from the readers. If the blogs start becomming famous and the visitors slowly grow, its obvious that you can start building a community from this to make sure the interaction is more easier and the viewers can become your blog’s members who would come back to your blog regularly to find updated/latest posts.
Blogging is generally considered as a way to promote someone, their business or their services. Check out our Problogging Steps section to get started with your first Blog.