Classification of blogs & methods to build blogging communities.

Classification of Blogs

There is no one way of classifying blogs. Most of the bloggers agree that the contents are the most important feature in a blog. But at the same time, it is difficult to do so, as the contents are often so varied. (Miller & Shepherd 2004)

A reviewing site (The Weblog Review blog), evaluates and grades the blog according to its contents based its design, consistency, and content. The Weblog Review classifies blogs into fourteen categories, as the following: adult, anime, camgirl, computer, entertainment, humor, movies, music, news/links, personal, photography, Spanish/Portugese, teen, and video games. (Miller & Shepherd 2004)

In the same way, Wikipedia classified blogs according to its contents, which includes personal, political, directory, as well as format based types of blogs. (Miller & Shepherd 2004)

Jill Walker offered a different kind of classification; the textual blogs and other subgenre blogs such as photoblogs, videoblogs and audioblogs. (Miller & Shepherd 2004)

Rebecca Blood (2000) offers her perspective of the classifications of blogs in two styles, a big portion judging on the contents; an original filter-style, in which the blogger himself is the author, editor and annotator of links and a more personal blog-style known as the weblog. This is a medium where bloggers blog freely, mainly based on the outbreak of self-expression.(Miller & Shepherd 2004)

Building a community

Communication between individuals is the key to every community, be it online or otherwise. There are two critical elements that a successful online community must have, that is firstly, to choose the right community or social networking features that may in a way or another relate to the community, and secondly, putting those features in the online application to good use. People often missed out the first step, thus causing the downfall of the online community. (Hedstrom 2009).

These are a few steps to get started on building a good community base:
1. Select an appropriate and suitable central gathering place.
2. Implement a web analytics on the blog.
(Suggestions: Plug in Google Analytics, claim your blog on Technorati or set up Feedburner)
3. Start sourcing out to find where your customers & potential customers are at
(Suggestions: Install Google Alerts, monitor Twitter, Social Media Firehose)
4. Find, monitor and start following trends.
5. Participate, join and get active on social networking sites or other blogs.
6. Be consistent and be everywhere. Make a name for yourself.

(Source: Bensen 2009)

References
1. Bensen, C. 2009, How To Build Community 101 (online accessed 1 June 2009)
URL: http://conniebensen.com/blog/2009/03/14/how-to-build-community-101/
1. Blood, R 2000, Weblogs: a history and perspective (Online accessed 29 May 2009)
URL: http://www.rebeccablood.net/essays/weblog_history.html
2. Funnell, A 2008, ‘A Taxonomy of Blogs’, The Media Report (Online accessed 29 May 2009)
URL: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2008/2372882.htm#transcript
3. Hedstrom, J. 2009, Building Community with Open Source (online accessed 1 June 2009)
URL: http://www.nten.org/blog/2009/05/28/building-community-open-source
4. Miller, C. R. & Shepherd, D. 2004, Blogging as Social Action: A Genre Analysis of the Weblog, North State Carolina University (Online accessed 1 June 2009)
URL: http://blog.lib.umn.edu/blogosphere/blogging_as_social_action_a_genre_analysis_of_the_weblog.html