2nd Posting (a) - Blogs as Current Phenomenon and Benefits of Blogging to the Community

What is blog? The term “blog” is a shortened from the word weblog or web blog. Blogging is a trend which gained momentum to the community. Ask blog addict why they do it; you will get a range of answers that leading towards “because it’s easy” and “because it’s fun”. Blogging is a frequent activity for bloggers everyday life. For instance, they watch any movies and review them. Their commentary and criticism will be posted on the blog. Post is in chronological order from most recent event to the older entries. Blog also can be defined as a publication of personal thoughts or diary.  So if it is personal thoughts of diary, why exactly do bloggers want to have others to read their ramblings? Columns by John C. Dvorak (2002), his opinion on obvious possibilities why people blog?

1- Ego gratification: Some human love to be the center of attraction. They feel good about themselves when telling the world their recent activity and what profound thoughts they’ve been having.

2- Eliminating the frustration: Day to day life. Meeting the worst event daily. Weblog giving the ability for people to complain about the world. Hoping for readers to respond with sympathy. Oh well, this is the most obvious reason for women to weblog. 

So what benefit do we get from weblog? Izatun Shari wrote an article from Star Newspaper dated January 24th, 2011 “Malaysian bloggers earn up to RM1mil annually”. In text, she mentioned bloggers now are exploiting their blogs for business transaction or advertisement placement, leads to earning an average monthly income of RM 70,000.00. Bloggers uses the advantage of weblog “Weblogs are easy to setup and administrate in contrast to other technologies.” – (Sergio Lujan-Mora, 2004) for business such as online shopping and advertisement placement which carries to profit in return. 

          Weblog which features linking / replying / tracking makes easier on sharing knowledge and information. Any discussion or comments in weblog helps promote higher level of thinking because readers can think before answering back. Format of weblog similar to personal diary, therefore weblog encourage informal communication creativity and self- expression. –Sergio Lujan-Mora & Susana de Juana-Espinosa (2004)-


References : 

• Espinosa Susana Juana & Mora Sergio Lujan. (2004) "THE USE OF WEBLOGS IN HIGHER EDUCATION:BENEFITS AND BARRIERS". Retrieve from : http://gplsi.dlsi.ua.es/proyectos/webeso/pdf/inted07.pdf

• Shari Izatun. 2011, Januari 24th. "Malaysian Bloggers earn up to RM1mil annually". The StarNewspaper. Malaysia.