Classification of Blogs

Blogs can be classified into different categories, according to the content of the blog, or subject matter, such as:

• Food
• Technologies
• Education
• Personal
• Music
• Politics
• Gaming
• Sketch
• Fashion

(Source: Fagstein, 2008)

Vlog is also a blog but uses video recording method rather than the written word for post entries (articlealley.com, 2010). The users record and upload a video to certain video websites, such as YouTube.com and Tudou.com. Some other forms of blogs are linklog, sketchblog, photoblog, Phlog and moblog (Revell, 2009).

However, a blog is not necessarily tied to only one style of content. Just like the movie genre, we get horror comedy movie from the crossover of genres of horror and comedy. The blog content can be overlapping each other, for example, a technology blogs can blog about gamings and art.

Margaret Simons, a freelance journalist, further specify blogs into nine types (Funnell, 2008):

• Pamphleteering Blog - A blog for a person or more to blog about an issue they argue, or to voice out strong point of opinion.
• Digest Blog - A blog with contents that summarize materials from other source.
• Advocacy Blog - Ran by advocacy groups, commercial organisations or the political parties, similar to pamphleteering blog.
• Popular Mechanics Blog - Blog that tells readers about certain specialities and they work, such as scuba diving.
• Exhibition Blog - A blog for those creative people who wants to show their works and share with other people.
• Gatewatcher Blog - Runs by people who expertise in certain fields, work as a goalkeeper to decide what can or cannot be shown in media.
• The Diary - A personal blog but the contents are public, which can be share with relatives and friends.
• The Advertisement - Blog for advertising and promoting products.
• News Blog - Blog that reports news that are happening around the world

From all of the classification above, we can see that the world of blogging is quite complex and hard to have a specific name for a specific blogging style. However, bloggers are free to choose the style they prefer for their blogs, and readers are free to read whatever style of blog they want.

References:

1. Article Alley.com, 2010, Video Blogs - What is a Vlog?, Article Alley.com, viewed 11 April 2010, http://www.articlealley.com/article_1413906_13.html


2. Funnell, A 2008, Towards a taxonomy of blogs, The Media Report, viewed 11 April 2010, http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2008/2372882.htm#transcript


3. Revell, M 2009, Types, WebEditorBlog.com, viewed 11 April 2010, http://www.webeditorblog.com/types.html