Blogging Today

1.1 Blogging Defined

With the recent rise in advanced social networking sites and the subsequent

attention they have received from media outlets, people commonly perceive
weblogs--which are the staple of social networking--as a new invention; however,
this isn't entirely true. Adding information to web-logs or "blogs”--blogging
defined today--has been around for over ten years--and has gradually gained
strength on the Internet as means of communication.

 While people blogging in the early 1990s generally limited their blogs to personal
information, such as chronicles and diaries, bloggers defined today includes
blogging on a wide variety of different topics--from politics to cheese-tasting;
however, blogging defined today is very much the same: a simple means to better
facilitate communication.

Blogging defined is one of the most effective means of Internet-based
communication because it is relatively easy and requires little time investment.
Using a blogging interface like Wordpress or Google's Blogger, a blog owner can
add new entries to his blog while he sits in a meeting at work or watches events
unfold on TV. Rather than fooling around with messy code, he can simply enter
his message textually in his blog; and then update it in a matter of seconds.

Another crucial aspect of blogging that makes it such an effective medium for
communication is that it allows for rapid-response comments. A political debate
could literally unfold over the course of the afternoon in the form of comments on
a blog.

Conversely, blogging defined by the media is often “controversial,” but it doesn't
have to be that way.  Many blogs are used to simply say "hello" to friends who are
blog owners. This is quite common with social networking sites, such as Myspace
and Livejournal--both of which use a form of blog to facilitate communication.

Whether blogging defined is a form spurring debate between political opponents
or blogging defined is a means of increasing bonds between friends, they have the
ability to rapidly increase the speed of communication by acting as a sort of
intermediary between a full-featured website and a forum.

1.2 The Popularity of Blogs Today

 In recent studies by the American Life Project and The Guardian (UK),
researchers asked whether or not the popularity of blogs today was growing in the
two countries; and if so, why? The results on the popularity of blogs today were
not exactly what most members of the blogosphere might expect.

Researchers working on the American Life Project found that the popularity of
blogs today in terms of readerships in the United States was absolutely exploding;
however, they also found that the amount of blogs available was increasing slowly
in comparison. In the last six months of 2004, for instance, blog readers grew
from a mere 17% of the population to a robust 37%--a significant increase.
However, blog writers only increased from 5% and 7%; and largely maintained
their homogeneous composition, which is predominantly male, young, and
wealthy. The ALP attributed this explosion in readerships to the Presidential
race, where both candidates employed blogging in some form to attract campaign
donors.

The Guardian, which performed their study more recently, also found similar
results in the United Kingdom on the popularity of blogs today. While they also
found that readerships had increased dramatically, they did not find the same
issue of slow blog growth; however, they did find out that a fairly astonishing
30% of frequent Internet users had never even heard of a blog.

So in which direction is the popularity of blogs today moving?--To greater
profusion or to obscurity? 

Given that blogs are the best intermediary between websites and forums, it is
hard to imagine that they will decrease in the popularity of blogs today;
conversely, however, it isn't hard to imagine that they will improve significantly
in continuation with how they have changed since their inception in the mid-
1990s.

In the short term, it is fairly safe to imagine that larger blogs will experiment with
video technology while older blogs stick with easy, faster-loading models. It is
also fairly safe to image that blog indexing methods will continue to improve and
may even break away from the traditional algorithm method.

1.3 Why Start Your Own Blog?

 

Why start your own blog when you can simply use a website? That is a question
many marketers ask. The truth is that blogs are started for decidedly different
reasons--some social, some productive, and some a combination of both. If you
plan to start a blog for entirely social reasons, you may want to select a medium
with high networking value, such as one of the networks that have large amounts
of members and allow for high degrees of interactivity.

If your goal is to create a blog that is completely productive, the question of “why
start your own blog?” may become even more crucial, as you probably see
starting a blog as a potential time trap. If this is the case, you may want to bypass
social networking altogether and instead create something with an easy-to-
manage and easy-to-update template, such as Blogger. If you do this, you will
find yourself asking the question “why start your own blog when you've already
got a website?” less and less.

You may want to block comments altogether to prevent extended conversations
between blog viewers. Even though comments can improve how fresh a blog
appears to search engines--and can also add new content--they can be seriously
abused if you do not have the time to monitor them closely. They can be the
source of perpetual fights on your blog--or a means for blog spammers to post
their irrelevant and unrelated comments on your blog. Additionally, if you've ever
been involved in a heated forum debate, you can understand why allowing
viewers to interact could seriously detract from time you could spend marketing.

Your third option is to create a blog that combines both productive goals with
social interaction. This might seem impossible, as social interaction can only
decrease the amount of time you can potentially spend working, but it actually
isn't. 

If your goal is to position yourself as an industry leader for your topical blog, then
you will want to have some means of interacting with other industry leaders; and
you will also want to prove your worth through responses to questions.
Additionally, you can also use social controversy to market your product. For
instance, if you own a dieting blog and you have a defensible, controversial stance
on something like low carb diets, you could benefit significantly by stirring up
controversy on low carb blogs -- and then sending them your way. You can then
use your blog to reel them in to your salespage.

So, to answer the question of “why start your own blog when you have a website?”
: blogs can be created for completely social reasons, for completely productive reasons, or for something in between that involves both. In many cases, this
simply isn't substitutable for a website.

1.4 Types of Blogs You Can Build

 The types of blogs you can build are limited only by your imagination and by your
willingness to conduct research. For instance, while some bloggers focus on
general topics, such as cars, other bloggers narrow the scope of their blogs even
further to sub-topics, such as luxury cars or antique cars. From an optimization
standpoint, a blog with a narrower scope would likely outperform a blog with a
broader scope in terms of conversions or clicks-per-visitor. So, if your goal is to
make money, the types of blogs you can build are somewhat limited.

In terms of actual topics for the types of blogs you can build, there are about 9
major areas that are popular for current blogs: business, culture, community,
politics, religion, science, travel, online diaries, and gossip. Most blog directories
use similar topical categories to order blogs.

In addition to the topic for the types of blogs you can build, you will also want to
consider the program used to generate it. This is another way that directories
categorize blogs. For instance, blogs can fall under the category of the tool or
software that was used to create them. Some blogs are created using Google's
Blogger. These blogs are often lumped together in directories as the same "type"
of blog. They actually have an auto-surfing system that allows you to jump
randomly from one Blogger blog to the another. 

Other types of blogs you can build include social networking blogs, which allow
members of the same network to interact with each other using various blog
functions. Two examples are Livejournal--which was one of the original social
networking blog systems--and Myspace, which is currently the largest, boasting a
base of around 80,000,000 users. In recent months, marketers and business
persons have begun using Myspace to introduce their product to potential
customers.

Another type of blog you can build is a video blog or "vlog." These usually contain
videos and allow other posts to attach media in comments.

The last types of blogs you can build are geographical blogs. With such a robust
blogging atmosphere--with users weighing in from all over the globe--directories, such as Blog Wise will allow users to search for blogs by geographic location. If
you believe you have some information you can contribute about your specific
region, you may want to start a regional geographic blog.

1.5 The Pros

Internet marketers, business professionals, and high school cheerleaders have all
debated the virtues of a blog. Even though blogs are relatively easy to update,
many question whether or not they provide real value--or just a means to create
more meaningless information. So what are the pros to building a blog and what
are the cons?

The high school cheerleader in the above example may see some serious social
value in a blog (the pros), but isn't sure if journaling her every move is really
worth the time (the cons). The business professional might see the value in
keeping in touch with clients and colleagues, but might not want to be tied to yet
another responsibility. And the Internet marketer might the pros of having a blog
as its ability to drive traffic to a new product, but isn't sure whether he will
actually have enough vested interest to continue updating it.

In fact, blogging can be a positive time investment for any of our characters in
question; and the pros do outweight the cons.

Take the cheerleader for instance. She could open a Livejournal or Myspace
account and spend a half hour each day updating her blog. Now all of her friends
can find out exactly what she is up to without talking to her on the phone for
hours about the same exact topics. The pros are significant. She can also simply
post comments on their blogs and respond to comments on her blog. This frees
up a lot of time, which she can now spend working on her cheerleading routines.

Next, consider the business professional. Rather than repeating plans to several
different colleagues, he can simply create a private blog; and use it to articulate
and update  all of his plans and ideas. He can then provide all of the colleagues in
question with access to this blog. In this case, the pros are also significant.

Last, consider the Internet marketer. He knows the blog will be a useful
mechanism for driving traffic to his salespage, but he doesn't think he will have
the interest to continue updating it. Rather than updating it himself, he can hire
an expert on the subject to do it for him -- or he can purchase material and use that to update it. Since most blogs can be updated without downloading software,
almost anyone can do this update for him. This means that he now has a stable
source of traffic generation and some extra time to promote his product.

1.6 The Cons

 You've heard all of the hype about blogging on the news. You've even heard about
people who use monetized blogs to rake in piles of cash. Maybe you've even read
"Blogging to the Bank"--or even have a number of monetized blogs yourself. You
might wonder if everything about blogging really is true--if it really is that good—
or if you've only heard the pros, not the cons.

Let's first tackle this from a non-marketing perspective. If you're not selling any
good or service, what are the cons to owning a blog?

Owning a blog can be a serious drain on your time, even if it is a completely
casual blog, which you update irregularly. It is yet another thing that you must
check; and if you don't bother checking it and updating, it is essentially a non-
functional, casual time drain. These are some of the cons you will want to
consider.

And from a marketing perspective, there are also the cons associated with a blog,
especially when compared to the alternatives, such as a fully functional website.
While a blog might provide you with an easy means to make updates and an easy
means to pull in traffic, you can effectively do all of this better with a fully
functional site.

For instance, if you want to constantly update content, you can add RSS feeds to
different pages on your site. This will look like fresh content to spiders, very
much like comments on your blog would appear.

And if you're looking for a means to communicate with potential customers or to
talk about problems with current customers, you are probably better off either
using a support ticket system or creating a forum, which, if done properly, will
yield more fresh content than a blog, but will require significantly less effort on
your part.

Additionally, as a marketer, a blog that significantly detract from your time. It
can also put you in a bind to add fresh content to a site that might be better off
with a static, optimized salespage.

Overall, a blog can be an effective stand-alone device for pulling traffic, but if
you’re looking for a more long term solution, you may be better off using a suite
of different tools and a fully-functional site, especially when you consider the
cons associated with a blog.