Purpose

Are you into blogging and are you aware of the updates on the latest blogging issue around the world? Well, the purpose of this blog is to communicate with the people who pay much attention to the latest technology information and to educate them on the latest updates of it. In addition, this blog helps me to communicate with the blogosphere (the blogging community).

This blog will University students and young adults and the primary target group would be the college students who blogs about their daily life while the secondary audience would be young adults and adults who writes comment about current issue happening in the country. In addition, this blogs aims to educate the public on the theories of internet usage.

Introduction

Introduction

As the world is now introduced to internet, things such as personal diary and views are no longer in favor to write with pen but type and post in the internet. Hence, weblog has made its limelight among the teenagers and adults. According to Webweevers (2007), ‘blog is a journal (online dairy) made available on the Internet/web by individual’, whereas ‘blogging is the active updating of a blog by the person who maintains the postings’.

A study done by Microsoft MSN portal has proven that 50 per cent of Malaysian bloggers use blogs to express themselves, while 63 per cent uses blogs for entertainment purpose. Among the entertainment, blogs related to technology, travel and music are ranked the most popular. In pan-Asia however, 46 per cent of the online public owns a blog and is believe that in India, the amount of male bloggers are more than female bloggers. (Ooi, J 2006)

Purpose behind blogging activity

If you are thinking of setting up a low-investment business, you may consider of selling your business through blog as it is almost cost-free and convenient. For example, Cuppacakes ,an e-business in Malaysia that sells cupcakes. Besides that, you may also blog about your daily experience as a way to communicate with your family and friends while keep them updating on your recent activities.

With that, I personally think that blogging is not only an excellent way to spend our time with, it also helps us to understand more about our friends and the latest issues happening around the world.

Classification of blogs

Among the various types of weblogs including Blogspot, Xanga, Mutiply, Wordpress and Wretch which targets on the Chinese community. Different blogging topics can be found on the internet and among the famous ones are politics, fashion, law and entertainment. Take politics as example, the government figure such as U.S Governor Jon Corzine uses the blog to form a community to communicate with each others. Whereas in Malaysia, one of the government figures who blog is Lim Kit Siang , and the famous blogger who writes comment on Malaysia politics is JeffOoi . Hence, a blog may be owned by a corporate body or individually.

As technology became more advance, blogs are no longer just plain words but has expanded to video blogging (vlog), blogging through mobile (moblog), music blog and etc.(Juiceenewsdaily 2005) .

My view of a good blog consist of 'information value, salience and framing' (Kress and Leeuwen, 2006) as it captures my attention before the context.

Blogging Community

The blogging community, also known as blogosphere includes people from various countries. It helps to group up people who share the same interest on blogging. Among the famous blogging communities are exchanging opinion in Metafilter as blogosphere shares latest issues such as news around the world with each others. Besides that e-shopping is also a trend among the blogging communiy. TuanGou is one of the best example where China people gather to do their shopping there.

Designing for online vs. print

According to Jakob Nielsen (1997), the text of a webpage should be succinct, scannability and in hypertext structure as people do not like to read a webpage dominated by text, unless they have too. When writing for a web, the content should be 50% less than the hardcopy as reading through a computer screen is 25% slower than reading a paper. A good weblog should always consider the usability issues to allow the readers to understand the content. If you have to include a page full of words, do separate them into short paragraphs with subheadings and highlighted keywords. (Nielsen, 1997)

When designing for online, you should not include too many pictures and let the page flow too long as it might slower the loading process and terminate the interaction with the user. On the other hand, designing for print is more convenient as print pages are fixed and do not takes time to load. However, designer should limit the color usage to save cost. (Nielsen, 1997)

New forms of media publishing
The latest trend of blogging is VBlog (video blogging) where bloggers post self-produced home-video online. Best examples are Youtube and Tudou (a famous vblog among the Chinese). Beside posting own videos online, public may also watch movies and latest news through video blogging website. Hence, i will explain more detailed about video blogging is the later posting.

One of the famous videos found in Youtube



Additional Link
Cuppacakes

Reference List:

Jakob, N. 1997, Be Succint (Writing for the web), [Online, accessed 01 June 2007] URL: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9703b.html

Kress, G. & Leeuwen, T.V. 2006, ‘Chapter six: The meaning of composition’, Reading images: The Grammar of Visual Design, (2nd ed.), Routledge, London.

Ooi, J. 2006, Blogging for social connection and self-expression [Online, accessed 7 June 2007]
http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/blog/lemaklemang/0,39056113,61971059,00.htm

Webweevers, 2007, Definition of Blog, Meaning and What a Blog Is [Online, accessed 01 June 2007] URL: http://webweevers.com/blog.htm

Design for all publics

Besides good writing and reliable sources, the layout of a webpage is important to attract the readers’ attention.

According to Victor Keegan, The age-old problem of online inclusion, published by The Guardian (2007),elderly people especially people in the 50s finds internet activities too complicated. Keegan states that those people are either “socially isolated” or they do not share common interest with the others who surfs the net. Studies found in UK that only 20% of 65 years old have internet access at home. Organisation has tried to come up with different ideas to occupy them into the latest trend but find difficulties in reaching them. Imagine MySpace were to design “MySpace for the 50-plus crowd”, it is doubt to be successful as the website is too funky. Well, event if it is successful, they may only attract people from the age group but not specifically just people over 50s.

After reading the article, I personally think that part of the reason the elderly are not attracted to latest trend because of the complicated navigation in all websites. Internet is like intertextuality (Walsh 2006, p.25) and they need to know the symbols or sign to move around in a website. Thanks to Silver Surfers' Day , the elderly citizen in UK can now learn to access to the internet.

Web designers now concentrate more on Johnsons' "romancing the hypertext" instead of focusing on the 'communications architects'(Schriver 2003 p.363). As internet allows navigation to leads to non-linear pathways,(Kress & Leeuwen 2006,p.204), web designer should allow clear navigation and hyperlinks to occupied the non-experience internet user. One of the examples of bad hyperlink is the social-networking web site, MySpace which was voted as the worst web sites last year. (PC World 2006)

Additional Link:
Silver Surfers'Day

Reference List:

Keegan, V. 2007, The Age-old Problem of Online Inclusion [Online, accessed 4 June 2007]
URL: http://media.guardian.co.uk/newmedia/comment/0,,2071322,00.html

Kress, G. & Leeuwen, T.V. 2006, 'Chapter six: The meaning of composition', Reading images: The Grammar of Visual Design, (2nd ed.), Routledge, London.

Schriver, K.A. 2003, 'Chapter six: The interplay of words and pictures, The Dynamics of Document Design: creating texts for readers', Wiley Computer Pub., New York.

Tynan, D. 2006, PC World – The 25 Worst Web Sites [Online, accessed 4 June 2007]
URL: http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,127116-page,8-c,sites/article.html#

Walsh, M. 2006, ‘The ‘textual shift’: examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts’, The Australian journal of language and literacy, Vol. 29, No. 1, pp. 24- 37.

Make your way to fame through VBlog

Instead of plain writing and designing of website, people now fully utilizes Vblog. Vblog, also know as Video blogging has turn a students into a famous character. Best examples are The Dormitory Boys and a famous clip from Hong Kong "Uncle Bus" .

The article, ‘The YouTube in you’ explains how the internet users create fame by using video blogging. Through video blogging, everyone can now be a filmmaker as all they need is a cameraphone, cameras with video functions, software for film editing and an internet connection. Besides students, aspiring filmmaker, Tan Kok Meng too uses vblog to communicate with his friend. Video blogging is also a tool where users upload movies and etc for the people around the world to watch. However, this also leads to copyrights issues.

To me, VBlog is a useful tool for users to express their creativeness in creating their video. VBlog filmmaker may be as famous as movie filmmaker as no one knows what the world will be like in 10 years. If there wasn’t an issue about copyrights, a movie can expand its popularity as bloggers post the particular movie online. Remember, internet is what we call “globalization”.

Well said, the user is the one who made the internet alive so as YouTube. As sociologist Ruth Finnegan says, 'the medium in itself cannot give rise to social consequences - it must be used' (Chandler, 2000)

A clip made by The Domitory boy:




Reference List:

2007, The YouTube In You [Online, accessed 4 June 2007].
URL: http://star-techcentral.com/tech/story.asp?file=/2007/4/25/technology/20070425155552&sec=technology

Chandler, D. 2000, Technological or Media Determinism [Online, accessed 4 June 2007].
URL: http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/tecdet/tdet11.html

Blogging without freedom?

Malaysian bloggers are currently in the centre attention of the government but is the Malaysian bloggers who went out-of-control or was it the government being too “protective”.

According to The Star Malaysia, the Deputy Energy, Water and Communication Minister Datuk Shaziman Abu Mansor has announced that bloggers using local hosted website may have to register themselves if they plan to continue blogging. The action is to prevent any rumor spreading on the internet. However, the action was disagreed by Opposition Leader Lim Kit Siang who is also a blogger. Lim states that the minister should understand more about the benefits of blogging which helps them to communicate with more people. (The Star 2007)

I personally agree with Marina Mahathir for saying “The move is just going to make Malaysia look ridiculous in the eyes of the world.”(The Star 2007) There is no doubt that bloggers do bring a thread to the government, however, the stricter the government is, the rebellious the public be.

Internet still has its stand as chief editor of MalaysiaKini , Steven Gan (2007) pointed out the four characteristics of the internet. The four characteristics include the non-hierarchical nature where information is distributed to everyone equally and internet as an interactive tool where the readers give instant feedback. Thus, the arrangement of prose and graphics may influence the meaning making of the reader. (Schriver 2003) Besides that, internet as is also a globalization for information to be distributed worldwide. Hence, it is uneasy to control the internet. For example, Malaysia government tried to control Malaysiakini from disseminating certain news, but it is near impossibility as Malaysiakini is not locally hosted.

Reference List:

2007, Bloggers May Have To Register [Online, accessed 4 June 2997].
URL: http://star-techcentral.com/tech/story.asp?file=/2007/4/5/technology/20070405153418&sec=technology

Gan, S. 2002, ‘Virtual Democracy: The Walkley Magazine, pp.14-15.

Schriver, K.A. 2003, ‘Chapter six: The interplay of words and pictures’, The Dynamics of Document Design: creating texts for readers, Wiley Computer Pub., New York.

Power of blogosphere

So, in the previous post I've blog about how some Malaysia Ministers criticize the bloggers and disagree with blogging. Hence, the bloggers in Malaysia has taken action to protect their rights.

The bloggers in Malaysia have formed an organisation to protect their rights. According to ex-journalist, Ahirudin Attan, All-Blogs (the National Alliance of Bloggers of Malaysia) was formed “to promote blogging and protect bloggers”. Ahirudin and his assistant of alliance, Jeff Ooi, are famous Malaysia political blogger who were sued by the government-linked New Straits Times newspaper for defamatory posting. Overall, the aim of the body is not set up to gatekeep the bloggers. According to Ahirudin, “All blogs will educate the bloggers on basic journalism ethics and writing skills on defamation and sedition laws, on fabrication and plagiarism, and to raise the quality of blogs content and limit ‘wild info’ on the blogs.” (Valin 2007)

Standing on the view of blogger, the blogophere is essential not only to share interest among each others, to protect the freedom to blog and to represent the power of blogging. Take the movie Harry Potter for example, Warner Bros have set up an online community for the fans to interact with each other.

'Social semiotics can be though of as indicating a general ideology or intellectual stance a conceptual angle on the subject'. (Halliday & Hasan 1985, p. 3) Hence, through the context of situation, the blogopshere uses the same term among each other. The technology terms used by blogosphere may be iterable (Schirato & Yell 1996) among themselves but non-blogosphere may not understand those terms. Therefore, it is important that the group of people share the same context of culture and interest.

Additional link:
An Anti Comic Sans font website

Harry Potter Fans Community

Reference List:

Halliday, M.A.K. & Hasan, R. 1985, ‘Chapter 1: Context of situation in Language, context, and text: aspects of language in a social-semiotic perspective’ , Deakin University, Vic, pp.3 -14
Harry Potter Dialogue Centre 2007 [Online, accessed 4 June 2007]
URL: http://boards.harrypotter.warnerbros.com/web/index.jspa

Schirato, T. & Yell, S. 1996, ‘Chapter 5: Framing contexts’, Communication and Cultural Literacy: An Introduction, Allen and Unwin, St. Leonards, N.S.W.

Valin 2007, Malaysia: Bloggers Organise Themselves to Protect Their Interest [Online, accessed 4 June 2007]
URL: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1817690/posts

Reflection

As multimodal (Walsh 2006) becomes a trend among the public, it is essential to understand the current trend of the internet.

Throughout the process of creating this weblog, I have learned that blogging is not just about writing but also includes visual-movable such as video blogging and moblogging. Besides, bloggers have to beware of what they post on their blogs to avoid any legal issue.

The non-linear pathway (Kress & Leeuwen 2006, p.204) system is a good way to globalize the information you plan to promote, therefore, web designer needs to create a good and interactive blog, to occupy the internet-illiterates. Internet is a transparent visual communication (Kress & Leeuwen 2006, p.17) which communicates through the synchronisation of modes.

To design a good webblog, knowledge of HTML and blogging is essential to make the website interactive. Through experience of blogging and blog-readings, it makes me understand more about how the current issues and blogging trend.

Lastly, as a blogger myself, I notice that it is important to have a standpoint of my own. A blogger should always determine their purpose of blogging and not to create any defamatory issues by spreading rumours. Overall, the most important thing is not to create unwanted politics such as criticism on other culture and religion without prove.

Reference List:

Kress, G. & Leeuwen, T.V. 2006, ‘Chapter one: The semiotic landscape: language and visual communication, (2nd ed.), Routledge, London.

Kress, G. & Leeuwen, T.V. 2006, ‘Chapter six: The meaning of composition’, Reading images: The Grammar of Visual Design, (2nd ed.), Routledge, London.

Walsh, M. 2006, ‘The 'textual shift': examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts’, The Australian journal of language and literacy, Vol. 29, No. 1, pp. 24- 37.