We talk briefly about what a blog is, its differences from a website and journalism, how it benefits, its origin, types, characteristics, who a blogger is and his blogging activities.
What is a blog?
A blog is an online diary or online journal in which users’ posts regularly serve as the main content. Records can include text blocks, graphics, photos, or multimedia.
On a blog, you can often read articles about a person’s personal life, daily activities, interests, and experiences. But there is no place for privacy on official websites, and it often conducts academic work in a specific area. This is exactly the difference between a blog and a website.
Blogs are also called virtual blogs or virtual diaries, depending on the goals they set when their use began to gain popularity. One of its most striking features is that it creates articles (i.e. posts) that are displayed in reverse chronological order.
The word blog is an acronym for weblog or web magazine, which means to be an author, save it, or add an article to an existing post. Blog texts are called blog posts, articles. The person who publishes these posts is called a blogger.
Origin.
Blogger is the owner of a personal website or page. The first blogger was Tim Berners Lee, who has been covering news on the Internet since 1992. Blogs have been popular since 1996. In 1999, the computer company PyraLabs launched blogger.com, a free blogging service, to make blogging more widespread.
What sets blogs apart today is that adding and editing information is very simple. Having a personal blog is becoming the best way to communicate, disseminate information, and news. That’s why it’s globalized. At the same time, it is becoming a source of sharing personal problems and their solutions with others and earning extra income.
Blogs fall into several categories:
By type of authorship:
A personal blog is run by one person. (usually by the blog owner).
The iconic blog is run by an unknown person.
A community or social blog is run by a group of individuals based on information provided by the blog owner.
A community blog is run by members of an organization.
By multimedia types:
A text blog is a blog based on texts.
A photo blog is a blog based on photos.
A music blog is a blog based on music.
A video blog is a blog based on video files.
According to the technical basis:
Standalone blog is a separate hosting and engine blog.
A blog platform is a blog based on the power of a blog service (LiveJournal, LiveInternet, etc.).
Moblog – mobile web blog, content blog.
Features of the blog
The blog has several features to make it easy for people to use, among which are:
The blog allows you to not only add text, but also add pictures and photos, which helps to expand and enrich the content and make it more engaging for readers.
Links can be added to other blogs or websites, allowing readers to expand the information.
It also allows you to place multimedia resources (video, audio, gif).
It can be broadcast by subscribing to the content or by sharing it on social media. This will increase the chances of getting the blog to more readers.
The technical advantage of a blog over a web page is that it can be used by any user, i.e. someone who does not have a certain level of knowledge in programming or web design.
Also, the cost of creating or maintaining an online blog is usually very low and even free compared to owning your own website.
Blogs, on the other hand, also allow you to create a community that understands a group of people united by common interests related to the topic that is regularly written on the website.
While there are almost no restrictions on the topics covered in the blogs, the most popular are related to cooking, health, travel, politics, and digital marketing.
Published content is personal, corporate, commercial, etc. it can. Even the goal can be as diverse as the topic: informing, entertaining, educating, sharing knowledge, selling, and more.
Although there are no restrictions on this either, what is expected on the blog is that you should publish content on a regular basis (daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, etc.).
Bloggers mainly work in the following areas:
– to express negative opinions about the current situation (critical views on the current political, economic, social situation);
– give useful advice (cooking, carpentry, sewing, advice on solving a problem);
– Articles related to science (musical instruments, computer literacy, interesting practices, and experiments in mathematics, physics, chemistry);
– Expert opinions on a situation (recent political, economic, social, legal situation)
– and others.
The difference between blogging and journalism:
– work on absolutely any topic;
– the opportunity to express their views in any way and bypass the culture of communication;
– blogging based only on personal opinions;
– work with minimal conditions and equipment (now only one smartphone is enough to become a blogger);
– be able to operate anonymously;
– There is no need to share with anyone if there is any financial benefit.
A blogger expresses a personal or human opinion about a situation or problem on his or her personal blog, and in many cases does not have accurate and reliable information. But they are not part of the media.
Unlike a journalist, a blogger can blog openly or anonymously. The journalist is responsible for all information provided. This is the main difference between a blogger and a journalist. There is also a professional ethic in journalism, which requires not to go beyond the established limits of communication.
To become a blogger, you do not need to graduate from a university in the field of journalism, get a diploma, follow various standards, professional qualifications. However, this does not mean that it should go beyond the boundaries. This is because some people run their blogs with various insults and rudeness with unsubstantiated opinions, and that is why their audience is interested in them. However, I don’t think that’s absolutely true. The reason is that a blogger should not only write articles that are interesting to people on his blog, but also provide information that will be useful to them without going beyond the bounds of etiquette.
Using a blog today
In the digital marketing world, blogs are a resource often used by companies to create and manage content marketing strategies. The goal is to create valuable content that is useful to actual or potential consumers, but without directly advertising the product. For example, a brand of products for children may have a blog on its official website that shares maternity, childcare, or pediatric advice.
Blogs are also used by those who want to be recognized as an expert on a particular topic, so they are usually not to showcase their experiences. They want to reach a subscriber base, build partnerships, report on upcoming days, publish valuable content, and frequently give. At the same time, they increase their events and search engine rankings.
In this case, blogging is a tool to strengthen your personal brand.
The method of using a personal blog has intensified to this day. Through blogging, people started making money by buying their knowledge. Of course, this means self-employment. The more personal blogs you have, the stronger the concept of info business (reference business) becomes. This, of course, makes a worthy contribution to the development of the rapidly growing information technology age.
So, if you have experience or knowledge in any field and want to earn extra income by teaching it to someone on a large scale, then you definitely need a personal blog.
Who can use the blog? The answer to the question: Any person! It doesn’t matter if you are a professor, a scientist, a farmer, a student, or a teacher. It doesn’t matter if it’s an area you’re interested in or a hobby. Here is what Bill Gates said:
‘There will be two business companies left in the future. The first is an Internet company, the second is a company that has ceased operations.’
Bill Gates
At the end of the article, I want to say that having a personal blog means having your own logo and business. So, open a blog and step forward to the goals you want!
