The Wonders of Blogging

Jorn Barger first came up with the term “weblog” in his website – Robot Wisdom – in December 2007. Peter Merholz later mentioned in his website, Peterme.com that he decided to term it “blog” from then on. (Blood, 2000)

A blog is widely known as a website with dated entries updated regularly arranged in a reverse chronological sequence (Walker, cited in Efimova, Hendrick, Anjewierden, 2005). Blogs are usually interconnected with similar topics. This virtual community is known as the “blogosphere” (Jones and Alony, 2008).

How to start blogging with Blogger

Source: YouTube

The popularity of blogs has risen rapidly over the years. Technorati, recorded a stunning 112 million existing blogs as at December 2007 (Wikipedia, 2008). As at June 2008, they managed to trace blogs written in 81 different languages (Technorati, 2008).

Makenzie (2006) pointed out that technology, business and political blogs are prominent in the European blogosphere. She also observed that 30 percent of the blogs are journal-like. A research conducted by Microsoft’s MSN and Windows Live Spaces revealed that 46 per cent of the people online in Asia have blogs (Stern, 2006).

In Malaysia, 20 per cent of people showed interest in reading political blogs. This is fairly high compared with the average 14 per cent across the region (Windows Live Spaces, 2006).

Blogs are popularly used by Malaysian politicians to spread their propaganda. Prominent people dominating the political scene are blogging today. People who are not involved in politics are also blogging issues censored by the mainstream media. People who turn to such blogs benefit from unfiltered information. Some of the famous political blogs in Malaysia are Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, Raja Petra Kamarudin, Lim Kit Siang, Jeff Ooi, Anwar Ibrahim and Rocky’s Bru.

References:

Blood, R 2000, Rebecca’s Pocket, ‘Weblogs: A History and Perspective’, viewed 6 November 2008, <http://www.rebeccablood.net/essays/weblog_history.html>.

Efimova L, Hendrick S and Anjewierden A 2005, Internet Research 6.0: Internet Generations, ‘Finding "the life between buildings": An approach for defining a weblog community’, Chicago, Illinois.

Jones M and Alony I 2008, Issues in Informing Science and Information Technology, ‘Blogs – the new source of data analysis’, vol. 5, University of Wollongong, Wollongong.

Mackenzie, K 2006, ‘European bloggers find their voice’, from Financial Times, viewed 11 November 2008, <http://globaltechforum.eiu.com/index.asp?layout=rich_story&channelid=4&categoryid=29&doc_id=9491>.

Stern, A 2006, Center Networks, ‘Blogging Phenomenon Sweeps Asia’, viewed 11 November 2008, <http://www.centernetworks.com/blogging-phenomenon-sweeps-asia>.

Technorati 2008, ‘State of the Blogosphere: 2008’, viewed 11 November 2008, <http://technorati.com/blogging/state-of-the-blogosphere/>.

Wikipedia 2008, Blog, viewed 11 November 2008, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog>.