New Forms of Media Publishing

It's a truism that our communications environment is changing. It was ever thus: all 'old' media were new media once. But there is something special about our present situation at the beginning of the 21st century. The combination of digital convergence, personal computing and global networking seems to have ratcheted up the pace of development and is giving rise to radical shifts in the environment.(Naughton 2006)

As we can see that not many people now days read or watch news through newspaper or television but through online news such as The Star online and Youtube.They more time on the internet itself than any other media. This is because internet has a very wide range of information that can be found easily and yet it's unlimited.

According to Walsh(2006), affordance means what is made possible by the modes used. The modern communication in this century such as Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube has the affordance to get connected with their audience easily with variety of visuals and texts.

References:

• Naughton, J 2006, Blogging and The Emerging Media Ecosystem, online, retrieved 5 May 2011, from http://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/fileadmin/documents/discussion/blogging.pdf
• Walsh, M 2006, The 'textual shift': Examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts, Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, Vol. 29, No.1, 2006, pp.24-37.

Blogging Communities & Methods to Build

Blogging communities are a community who interacted online within some bounded set of technologies. The technological act of joining was the most visible indicator of being 'in' or 'out' of the community. Communities could be public or private and visible only to those who joined.(White 2006) As Owyang(2007) classify blogging community is where a group of people with similar goals or interests connect and exchange information using web tools.

According to Nikkis(2011), the methods to build blogging communities will be:-

1. Read other blogs. Reading other blogs can get feel for what you like and will discover blogs that you share common interests with.
2. Leave comments on other blogs. By leaving a comment, you are leaving a calling card for others to find you.
3. Reply to your comments. When people comment on your blog or your posts, they want to know they've been heard.
4. List your blog in directories. A simple Google search for "blog directories" will bring thousands of results.
5. Write often. A couple of posts per day you are providing your readers with variety and a chance to keep them at your blog.
6. Make your post entertaining. Is your content fresh with a different view than other bloggers out there have?
7. Start marketing your blog. One way is to have a signature link to your blog on message boards and forums.

As blogging has gained wider adoption, blog based community shows up in three main patterns with a wide variety of hybrid forms emerging between the three.(White 2006)

Blog Based Communities

(White 2006)

Single Blog/Blogger Centric Community

This is the first form of blog based community to emerge as readers begin returning to early bloggers' sites, commenting and getting to know not only the blogger, but the community of commentors.(White 2006)

Topic Centric Community

This form is exemplified by groups such as food bloggers, mummy bloggers, travel bloggers and political bloggers with a particular party or issue identification.(White 2006)

Boundaried Communities

Typically members register and 'join' the community and are offered the chance to create a blog. This boundary makes them the closest form to traditional forum based communities.(White 2006)

Tumblr is an example of social blog which falls into the boundaried communities. This is because, tumblr is a social blogs that require user to register themselves before they will be able to create a blog. After registering and joining the community, there goes the user able going around reading other blogger's post and may re-post it in their blogs and leave comments.

References:

• Nikkis 2011, eHow.com, How to Build a Blogging Community, online, retrieved 3 May 2011, from http://www.ehow.com/how_2152382_build-blogging-community.html
• Owyang, J 2007, Defining the term: "Online Community", online, retrieved 3 May 2011, from http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2007/12/28/defining-the-term-community/
• White, N 2006, Blogs and Community-launching a new paradigm for online community?, online, retrieved 3 May 2011, from http://kt.flexiblelearning.net.au/tkt2006/edition-11-editorial/blogs-and-community-%E2%80%93-launching-a-new-paradigm-for-online-community

Classification of Blogs

Different types of blogs are created for different kind of audience and it is blog for different reasons. This is because there are different classifications of blogs such as:

Subject Matters:-

• politics (eg: http://donklephant.com/)
  
• fashion (eg: http://www.fashionblogsite.com/)
• history (eg: http://www.thehistoryblog.com/)
• law (eg: http://abovethelaw.com/)

Device:-

• moblog-mobile phone web log (eg: http://www.busythumbs.com/)

Media type:-

• vlog-video blog (eg: http://www.youtube.com/)
• linklog-URLs (hyperlinks) blog (eg: Tony Finch's link log)
• sketchlog-images blog especially sketches and other drawings (eg: Christine's Sketchlog)
• tumblelogs-similar to linklog but it provides more variation of post (eg: http://www.tumblr.com/)

Status of publishers:-

• business blog (eg: http://smallbiztrends.com/)
• corporate blog (eg: http://blog.redfin.com/)

Simons(2008) mention that she has her own list of different types of online sites that classify as blogs which are:

1. Pamphleteering blog-an individual or group of individuals put out a brief essay arguing a point, or expressing a strong point of view.
2. Digest blog-to point/to summarize/to collect material from elsewhere.
3. Advocacy blog-pushes a particular point of view on a particular issue.
4. Popular Mechanics blog-a fascinating collection of information on how to do stuff.
5. Exhibition blog-usually maintained by craftspeople, artists, writers, and they bring their work to a wider audience.
6. Gatewatcher blog-small group of blogs which keep an eye on the media.
7. Diary blog-personal blog.
8. Advertisement blog-thinly-veiled advertisements in a blog for advertising purpose.
9. News blog-blogs which provide breaking news.

According to Simons(2008), some blogs offer hope for a new kind of journalism and some don't because they are doing a different kind of thing-things which may in themselves be valuable. Therefore, in my opinion, classifying the kind of blogs isn't that easy and if a blog has classified properly it could definitely gives a better understanding to the viewers.

References:

• Simons, M 2008, ABC.net.au; The Media Report; A Taxonomy of Blogs 2008, online, retrieved 30 April 2011, from http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2008/2372882.htm#transcript
• Simons, M 2008, APO.org.au; Commentary; Towards a Taxonomy of Blogs,online, retrieved 30 April 2011, from http://www.apo.org.au/commentary/towards-taxonomy-blogs-0

Blogs as Current Phenomenon & Benefits to The Community

It's common that people nowadays do blog. They started to blog for the purpose of expressing their thoughts, feelings, experience, and many more. According to State of the Blogosphere 2010, bloggers are a highly educated and affluent group which nearly half of all the bloggers who have surveyed have earned a graduate degree, and blogging is now a part of mainstream that average blogger has three or more blogs.(Technorati 2010)

As Morris(2010) mention, blogosphere shows signs of astronomical growth. Blogging is growing both in the US and especially internationally that tens of thousands of new blogs are created every day.(Wordpress.com 2011)

In terms of blogging trends, according to Blogpulse, the most popular topics will be diary and it definitely leads the way. It's one popular topic that many bloggers will blog about.

(Blogpulse 2011)

There are lots of different kinds of blogs and there're more numbers coming on the way as we can see that the stats of blogosphere are growing every time. The types of blogs include political blogs, personal blogs, sports blogs, non-profits blogs, and many more.

It's common that different country have different interest on different kind of blogs. For example, in Iran, the prevalent type of blog would be political blogs because, disenfranchised Iranis have often turned to the blogosphere to engage in commentary critical of the regime.(Technorati 2009) Thus, blogging do benefits Malaysian communities because when comes to political issues, basically most mainstream newspapers are owned by government therefore it will be very biased. So, Malaysian communities can read blogs to understand the other side of the issues.

References:

• Morris, A 2010, Ignite Social Media 2010; 2010 Blogging Trends, online, retrieved 27 April 2011, from http://www.ignitesocialmedia.com/social-media-trends/2010-blogging-trends-blog-growth-statistics/
• Technorati 2009, State of The Blogosphere 2009; Blogging's Global Impact and the Future of Blogging, online, retrieved 27 April. 2011, from http://technorati.com/blogging/article/day-5-twitter-global-impact-and/page-2/
• Technorati 2010, State of The Blogosphere 2010; Demographics, online, retrieved 27 April 2011, from http://technorati.com/blogging/article/who-bloggers-brands-and-consumers-day/
• Wordpress.com 2011, Stats; Frequently asked questions, online, retrieved 27 April 2011, from http://en.wordpress.com/stats/

Document Design

Now days, it's very common that people uses PowerPoint slides to help them to develop a better understanding presentation. But before starting on getting your PowerPoint, you yourself have to understand about the topic itself. According to Russell(2011), when making a business presentation the most important thing is to know your material and if you do not know everything about what you are selling, it is not likely that the audience will be buying.

To present a good PowerPoint presentation, first of all, make sure all the slides are easy to read by avoid using fancy fonts that will be very difficult for readers to read; then make sure a clear title on each slides; use a simple background so that you won't let any sentences written unclear to read cause of contrasting background; try using graphics, charts or images that will help out in explaining better; avoid using too many words in a presentation slide; do not have too many slides.(Marquez 2011)

For example, the image below which I used it for my group presentation on my week 3, is a very simple background with not complicated fonts. The image on the left is a brief point with supporting from a reading and then I will further elaborate my point with some images on the right side which mean the next slide of my presentation.

Another example below, wish I would like to focus on the title which is 'Visuals Are Not Always Helpful'. With such title it can already grab reader's attention on more what you going to say in further on.

Therefore, Anderson (1987) points out, a good document design helps readers read efficiently, emphasizes the most important contents, and encourages readers to feel good about a communication.(Putnis et al. 1996)

References:

• Marquez, Z, L 2011, How to Make a Good PowerPoint Presentation, online, retrieved 10 April 2011, from http://ezinearticles.com/?How-to-Make-a-Good-PowerPoint-Presentation&id=4313178
• Putnis, Peter and Petelin, Roslyn 1996, Professional communication: principles and applications, Writing to communicate, Prentice Hall, Sydney.
• Russell, W 2011, 10Tips for Creating Successful Business Presentations, online, retrieved 10 April 2011, from http://presentationsoft.about.com/od/powerpointinbusiness/tp/bus_pres_tips.htm

Purpose

Publishing makes information available for public view and 'producing information' is the key concept of it.(Schisler 2011) Therefore, the purpose of this blog will be discussing about publishing and some media issues. As this blog's target audience will be specify down to students who have more concern about research and information about document design.

References:

• Schisler, M 2011, The Future of Publishing-Introduction, What is Publishing?, Publishing and Photography, A More Democratic Publishing Network, Changes in Printing, online, retrieved 9 April 2011, from http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/articles/pages/1088/ Thw-Future-of-Publishing.html