Blogging – Introduction

Blogging is an evolutionary process, and blogs have evolved beyond personal journals to become tools for real journalism, business, and authorship. A blog is a fabulous tool for publishing your diary of thoughts and ideas; however, blogs also serve as excellent tools for business, editorial journalism, news, and entertainment. Here are some ways that people use blogs:

✦ Personal: A blogger can use a blog as a journal or diary. You’re considered a personal blogger if you use your blog mainly to discuss topics related to you or your life — your family, your cats, your children, or your interests (for example, technology, politics, sports, art, or photography). Lisa’s blog, which you find at http://lisasabin-wilson.
com, is an example of a personal blog.

✦ Business: A blogger can use a blog to promote her company’s business services or products. Blogs are very effective tools for promotion and marketing, and business blogs usually offer helpful information to readers and consumers, such as sales events and product reviews. Business blogs also let readers provide feedback and ideas, which can help a company improve its services. A good example of a business blog is ServerBeach, which you can find on the hosted WordPress.com service at http://serverbeach.wordpress.com.

✦ Media/journalism: Popular news outlets, such as Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN, are using blogs on their Web sites to provide information on current events, politics, and news on a regional, national, and international level. These news organizations often have editorial bloggers, too. CNN’s Anderson Cooper, for example, maintains a blog on CNN’s Web site at http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com, with news and commentary from the Anderson Cooper 360° television show. Readers are invited to join in, too, by leaving comments about the news stories.

✦ Government: Number 10 (www.number10.gov.uk) is the official site of the British Prime Minister from his headquarters at 10 Downing Street in London. The Prime Minister and his staff provide content by way of blog posts, photos, and videos, and integrate feeds from their Twitter and Facebook accounts. Governments use blogs to post news and updates to the web quickly, as well as integrate social-media tools as a means and way to interact with their citizens and representatives.

✦ Citizen journalism: Blogging has provided people opportunities to report and analyze news and information on a national and international level. Citizens are using blogs with the intention of keeping the media and politicians in check by fact-checking news stories and exposing inconsistencies. Major cable news programs interview many of these bloggers because the mainstream media recognize the importance of the citizen voice that’s emerging via blogs. An example of citizen journalism is Power Line at http://powerlineblog.com.

✦ Professional: Professional bloggers, a category that’s growing every day, can blog for companies or Web sites. Blog networks, such
as WeblogsInc.com, hire bloggers to write about certain topics. Additionally, several services match advertisers with bloggers, and the
advertisers pay the bloggers to post about their products. Check out Darren Rowse’s ProBlogger blog at http://problogger.net. Darren
is considered the grandfather of all professional bloggers. The Web sites and blogs we provide in this list run on the WordPress platform.
A wide variety of organizations and individuals choose WordPress to run their blogs and Web sites.

Source: Books