Since 1999
We
all know about blogs. The ubiquitous blog has now flooded the information super highway. You can find a blog on anything and everything – from voicing opinions (political, social, cultural, religious, whatever) to sharing recipes; from giving updates on the blogger’s personal life to analysing internet trends; from movies to music to business to technology……..you can find blogs on everything under the sun. Leading publishing houses now have blogs in their online editions as a new channel for their writers to put forward their ideas and thoughts to a wide number of audiences. All portals worth their name provide blogging platforms.
Blogs are used to communicate and interact with customers and other stake holders. Every website worth its salt posts its own blogs to improve its search engine rankings and social networking sites just can’t do without blogs. Filmstars and politicians and other celebrities are writing their own blogs to have their real opinions heard over the media rabble. But how did it all start? The blog appeared as an online journal or a personal diary on the web which encouraged the hidden writer in all of us to come out and share our views, opinions, experiences and so on. It had words and it had images. We could write about whatever caught our fancy, vent our spleen on what angered or hurt us, upload pictures we wanted to share with others and get the readers to react and comment on it.
Today, blogging has become a social phenomenon. And with the internet becoming more and more interactive and user-driven, blogging is becoming increasingly powerful as a platform for voicing opinions – both individual and collective.
To the readers, a blog is a webpage, whereas for the authors, a blog is an authoring system that allows them to create a webpage without knowing HTML or other web technologies and without any special software. A blog can be maintained and updated by any one having little or no technological knowledge.
Types of Blogs
There are different types of blogs on the basis of the type of content published and the way content is delivered or written.
Personal Blogs — This is the most famous type of blog which is like an ongoing diary or commentary by bloggers. Here the bloggers pen down their ideas, thoughts, and personal views on a subject or about their day to day life. Personal blog is more than a way to communicate with your friends and near ones. In fact, it has become a way to reflect on life or works. Today, good personal blogs also get a good number of visitors and good ranking by search engines if the content published there is original and of good quality.
Corporate Blogs — Corporate blogs used for enhancing the internal communication and culture in a corporation and for externally marketing, branding or public relations. A corporate blog indicates that you are moving with the technology, making your company image stronger in the minds of customers. The main purpose of using these blogs is to advertise for new services, update readers on the status of an ongoing project as well as discuss the pros and cons of a given product.
Question Blogging — This is a type of blog that answers questions asked by users or the author himself. Questions that need to be answered are usually submitted in the form of a submittal form, through email or other means such as telephone or VOIP.
While not a legitimate type of blog, a blogone used for the sole purpose of spamming is known as a Splog. These blogs are intended to promote commercial companies or products. In my next post, I will throw light on the 10 steps you can follow to write some successful blogs. Till then, happy blogging!
By Gitanjali Verma
