A blog (a contraction of the term "web log")[1] is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.
Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, Web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (Art blog), photographs (photoblog), videos (Video blogging), music (MP3 blog), and audio (podcasting). Microblogging is another type of blogging, featuring very short posts.
As of December 2007, blog search engine Technorati was tracking more than 112,000,000 blogs.[2]
Types
There are many different types of blogs, differing not only in the type of content, but also in the way that content is delivered or written.
- Personal blogs
- The personal blog, an ongoing diary or commentary by an individual, is the traditional, most common blog. Personal bloggers usually take pride in their blog posts, even if their blog is never read. Blogs often become more than a way to just communicate; they become a way to reflect on life or works of art. Blogging can have a sentimental quality. Few personal blogs rise to fame and the mainstream, but some personal blogs quickly garner an extensive following. A type of personal blog is referred to as "microblogging," which is extremely detailed blogging as it seeks to capture a moment in time. Sites, such as Twitter, allow bloggers to share thoughts and feelings instantaneously with friends and family and is much faster than e-mailing or writing.
- Corporate and organizational blogs
- A blog can be private, as in most cases, or it can be for business purposes. Blogs, either used internally to enhance the communication and culture in a corporation or externally for marketing, branding or public relations purposes are called corporate blogs. Similar blogs for clubs and societies are called club blogs, group blogs, or by similar names; typical use is to inform members and other interested parties of club and member activities.
- By genre
- Some blogs focus on a particular subject, such as political blogs, travel blogs (also known as travelogs), house blogs,[3][4] fashion blogs, project blogs, education blogs, niche blogs, classical music blogs, quizzing blogs and legal blogs (often referred to as a blawgs) or dreamlogs. Two common types of genre blogs are art blogs and music blogs. A blog featuring discussions especially about home and family is not uncommonly called a mom blog.[5][6][7][8][9] While not a legitimate type of blog, one used for the sole purpose of spamming is known as a Splog.
- By media type
- A blog comprising videos is called a vlog, one comprising links is called a linklog, a site containing a portfolio of sketches is called a sketchblog or one comprising photos is called a photoblog.[10] Blogs with shorter posts and mixed media types are called tumblelogs. Blogs that are written on typewriters and then scanned are called typecast or typecast blogs; see typecasting (blogging).
- A rare type of blog hosted on the Gopher Protocol is known as a Phlog.
- By device
- Blogs can also be defined by which type of device is used to compose it. A blog written by a mobile device like a mobile phone or PDA could be called a moblog.[11] One early blog was Wearable Wireless Webcam, an online shared diary of a person's personal life combining text, video, and pictures transmitted live from a wearable computer and EyeTap device to a web site. This practice of semi-automated blogging with live video together with text was referred to as sousveillance. Such journals have been used as evidence in legal matters.[citation needed]
Community and cataloging
- The Blogosphere
- The collective community of all blogs is known as the blogosphere. Since all blogs are on the internet by definition, they may be seen as interconnected and socially networked, through blogrolls, comments, linkbacks (refbacks, trackbacks or pingbacks) and backlinks. Discussions "in the blogosphere" are occasionally used by the media as a gauge of public opinion on various issues. Because new, untapped communities of bloggers can emerge in the space of a few years, Internet marketers pay close attention to "trends in the blogosphere".[12]
- Blog search engines
- Several blog search engines are used to search blog contents, such as Bloglines, BlogScope, and Technorati. Technorati, which is among the most popular blog search engines, provides current information on both popular searches and tags used to categorize blog postings[13]. The research community is working on going beyond simple keyword search, by inventing new ways to navigate through huge amounts of information present in the blogosphere, as demonstrated by projects like BlogScope.[[[Wikipedia:[citation needed]|[citation needed]]]]
- Blogging communities and directories
- Several online communities exist that connect people to blogs and bloggers to other bloggers, including BlogCatalog and MyBlogLog[14]. Interest-specific blogging platforms are also available. For instance, Blogster has a sizable community of political bloggers among its members.
- Blogging and advertising
- It is common for blogs to feature advertisements either to financially benefit the blogger or to promote the blogger's favorite causes. The popularity of blogs has also given rise to "fake blogs" in which a company will create a fictional blog as a marketing tool to promote a product.[15]
Popularity
Researchers have analyzed the dynamics of how blogs become popular. There are essentially two measures of this: popularity through citations, as well as popularity through affiliation (i.e. blogroll). The basic conclusion from studies of the structure of blogs is that while it takes time for a blog to become popular through blogrolls, permalinks can boost popularity more quickly, and are perhaps more indicative of popularity and authority than blogrolls, since they denote that people are actually reading the blog's content and deem it valuable or noteworthy in specific cases.[16]
The blogdex project was launched by researchers in the MIT Media Lab to crawl the Web and gather data from thousands of blogs in order to investigate their social properties. It gathered this information for over 4 years, and autonomously tracked the most contagious information spreading in the blog community, ranking it by recency and popularity. It can therefore be considered the first instantiation of a memetracker. The project is no longer active, but a similar function is now served by tailrank.com.
Blogs are given rankings by Technorati based on the number of incoming links and Alexa Internet based on the Web hits of Alexa Toolbar users. In August 2006, Technorati found that the most linked-to blog on the internet was that of Chinese actress Xu Jinglei.[17] Chinese media Xinhua reported that this blog received more than 50 million page views, claiming it to be the most popular blog in the world.[18] Technorati rated Boing Boing to be the most-read group-written blog.[17]
Blurring with the mass media
Many bloggers, particularly those engaged in participatory journalism, differentiate themselves from the mainstream media, while others are members of that media working through a different channel. Some institutions see blogging as a means of "getting around the filter" and pushing messages directly to the public. Some critics worry that bloggers respect neither copyright nor the role of the mass media in presenting society with credible news. Bloggers and other contributors to user-generated content are behind Time magazine naming their 2006 person of the year as "you".
Many mainstream journalists, meanwhile, write their own blogs — well over 300, according to CyberJournalist.net's J-blog list. The first known use of a blog on a news site was in August 1998, when Jonathan Dube of The Charlotte Observer published one chronicling Hurricane Bonnie.[19]
Some bloggers have moved over to other media. The following bloggers (and others) have appeared on radio and television: Duncan Black (known widely by his pseudonym, Atrios), Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit), Markos Moulitsas Zúniga (Daily Kos), Alex Steffen (Worldchanging) and Ana Marie Cox (Wonkette). In counterpoint, Hugh Hewitt exemplifies a mass-media personality who has moved in the other direction, adding to his reach in "old media" by being an influential blogger. Equally many established authors, for example Mitzi Szereto have started using Blogs to not only update fans on their current works but also to expand into new areas of writing.
Blogs have also had an influence on minority languages, bringing together scattered speakers and learners; this is particularly so with blogs in Gaelic languages. Minority language publishing (which may lack economic feasibility) can find its audience through inexpensive blogging.
There are many examples of bloggers who have published books based on their blogs, e.g., Salam Pax, Ellen Simonetti, Jessica Cutler, ScrappleFace. Blog-based books have been given the name blook. A prize for the best blog-based book was initiated in 2005,[20] the Lulu Blooker Prize.[21] However, success has been elusive offline, with many of these books not selling as well as their blogs. Only blogger Tucker Max made the New York Times Bestseller List.[22] The book based on Julie Powell's blog "The Julie/Julia Project" was made into the film Julie & Julia, apparently the first to do so.
Legal and social consequences
Blogging can result in a range of legal liabilities and other unforeseen consequences.
Defamation or liability
Several cases have been brought before the national courts against bloggers concerning issues of defamation or liability. U.S. payouts related to blogging totaled $17.4 million by 2009; in some cases these have been covered by umbrella insurance.[23] The courts have returned with mixed verdicts. Internet Service Providers (ISPs), in general, are immune from liability for information that originates with third parties (U.S. Communications Decency Act and the EU Directive 2000/31/EC).
In Doe v. Cahill, the Delaware Supreme Court held that stringent standards had to be met to unmask the anonymous posts of bloggers and also took the unusual step of dismissing the libel case itself (as unfounded under American libel law) rather than referring it back to the trial court for reconsideration.[24] In a bizarre twist, the Cahills were able to obtain the identity of John Doe, who turned out to be the person they suspected: the town's mayor, Councilman Cahill's political rival. The Cahills amended their original complaint, and the mayor settled the case rather than going to trial.
In January 2007, two prominent Malaysian political bloggers, Jeff Ooi and Ahiruddin Attan, were sued by pro-government newspaper, The New Straits Times Press (Malaysia) Berhad, Kalimullah bin Masheerul Hassan, Hishamuddin bin Aun and Brenden John a/l John Pereira over an alleged defamation. The plaintiff was supported by the Malaysian government.[25] Following the suit, the Malaysian government proposed to "register" all bloggers in Malaysia in order to better control parties against their interest.[26] This is the first such legal case against bloggers in the country.
In the United States, blogger Aaron Wall was sued by Traffic Power for defamation and publication of trade secrets in 2005.[27] According to Wired Magazine, Traffic Power had been "banned from Google for allegedly rigging search engine results."[28] Wall and other "white hat" search engine optimization consultants had exposed Traffic Power in what they claim was an effort to protect the public. The case was watched by many bloggers because it addressed the murky legal question of who is liable for comments posted on blogs.[29] The case was dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction, and Traffic Power failed to appeal within the allowed time.[30][31][32][33]
In 2009, a controversial and landmark decision by The Hon. Mr Justice Eady refused to grant an order to protect the anonymity of Richard Horton.[34]
In 2009, NDTV issued a legal notice to Indian blogger Chetan Kunte for "abusive free speech" regarding a blog post criticizing their coverage of the Mumbai attacks.[35] The blogger unconditionally withdrew his post, replacing it with legal undertaking and an admission that his post had been "defamatory and untrue" which resulted in several Indian bloggers criticizing NDTV for trying to silence critics. sumber : wikipedia.org[36]
Entah daya tarik apa yg membuat banyak orang kembali ke Kawah Putih Ciwidey. Yang jelas dataran tinggi Bandung Selatan tsb mewakili snapshot pegunungan terpenting di Indonesia. Begitu banyak inspirasi sudut2 gambar lahir dari bidikan kamera di kawah putih pada ketinggian 2,300 m dpl yang angker dan berwibawa. Saat seorang pengembara Belanda bernama Junghun datang di abad 19, penduduk sekitar menyebutnya sebagai tempat dimana arwah para leluhur bersemayam, yg tidak seorangpun boleh berada disana tanpa meregang nyawa, yang burung pun enggan terbang diatasnya. Pendapat tsb tidak sepenuhnya salah. Benar bahwa Kawah Putih Gunung Patuha itu berwibawa, karena ketinggiannya dan kesunyiannya. Benar, bahwa Kawah putih itu angker, yang melulu karena fumarol belerang pekat yang harus diperhitungkan pada saat angin berhenti berputar. Selebihnya Kawah Putih itu adalah tempat dimana titisan surga pernah diturunkan ke bumi, begitu anggun, tenang, dingin dan menghanyutkan.
Bulan Juli Agustus temperature bisa turun serendah 10ºC pada siang hari dan 5ºC pada malam hari. Semilir angin membawa pergi kabut pekat uap belerang menjauh. Teriaklah kuat-kuat; konon akan diteruskan echo-nya oleh dinding-dinding padas ke surga. Pengunjung tak akan betah berlama-lama diterpa angin gunung yang menyelinap ke tulang sumsum. Seruput bandrek di warung di tempat parkir menghangatkan tenggorokan yang kering. Berkeliling kawah pada saat musim kemarau cukup mudah dilakukan; mencari sudut-sudut pandang terlupakan yang barangkali tercecer dari surga.
