What is a Blog, what does it do? A blog (a truncation of the expression web log) ~ Wikipedia
I myself have never had a blog
and never read any blogs, with so many other types of social media available
blogging is something I have never needed to use or look into. Therefore I did
some further research to educate myself more on what a blog actually is.
A blog is a website where you can
post practically anything: text, pictures, documents or links for example. At
first I thought blogs were only for personal use but have learnt that they can
also be used for companies and advertising purposes. After creating a post on a
blog readers can comment and subscribe or share the blog with other people.
To me a blog can basically be
about anything, it is up to the person that creates the blog and what they want
to use it for. A blog allows others
online access to what you wish to publish and share.
My blog is an online visual diary
created for this course but I have enjoyed creating it so much I may go on to
create more blogs about other interest.
What types of blog are available?
Most blogs mainly consist of text
posts. I founds blogs that focus on specific things can have other names for
example; art blogs, photoblogs, video blogs (vlogs), mp3 blogs, podcasts.
An interesting fact I found was
that posting status updates on social media sites such as Facebook and MySpace
is actually classified as Microblogging.
When blogs are used for
educational purposes they are called edublogs.
More specifically some types of
blogs are; Personal (genre dedicated), Busuiness, Non-Profits, News Blogs,
Politics, Sports.
Compile a list of 5 blogging
systems and list their strengths and weaknesses
Blogger
Blogger is easy to use and there
is an excellent online help center available. You can easily delete your blog
and there is no advertising other than the blogger logo. There are many great
gadgets available including site statistics tools. The only weakness from my
point of view would be for blog beginners such as myself, perhaps it should
offer an introduction for first time users.
Tumblr
Tumblr is free to use but doesn’t
offer as much as other blogging platforms such as Wordpress and Blogger. There are
advertisements but not on your home (personal) page. I would say if you like Facebook you will like
Tumblr. It offers themes that you can purchase if you want to personalize your
page a bit more. If you need to delete or rename your Tumblr account this can
be done easily.
YouTube
YouTube is what is a called a vlogging site to post
video’s. It’s free to use and easy to setup. It offers some editing tools and
free to use music. It has very limited personal customizing options and it has
no themes. There is online help but it is not easy to find. One major downfall
is there is loads of advertising and there are no options to remove it. YouTube
is very search engine friendly. It is extremely easy to search and access
anyone who has a YouTube channel.
Twitter
Twitter is a micro blogging system. It is easy to use and
it does not take a lot of time to setup. There is not a lot you can do in the
way of personalizing your Twitter account which is a downfall. It gives you the
option to have a public or private profile, if you have a public profile your
posts (micro blogs) will be available to read by anyone just like a regular
blog site. I would recommend Twitter to anyone who has a busy lifestyle and
does not need or want to spend a lot of time on creating and updating a regular
blog.
Facebook
Facebook would be classed as a micro blogging site. It is
more of a private blogging system where you share your posts with your friends. You are very limited on what customizing you
can do; you can only change your cover picture. You can upload mp3, videos and
pictures as well as written posts. You can open groups and people can advertise
their businesses. I think Facebook is great for people who don’t really want to
customize too much. Facebook is simple, free and easy to use but it is jam
packed of advertising which you cannot remove. It is very hard to delete your
Facebook permanently, you can deactivate but the option will always be there to
log back in and reactivate anytime.
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