From classification to community

There’s no end to classification when it comes to blog. There are so many subjects immerging every day, it is difficult to categorize a specific topic on a blog. This is evident on bloggersblog.com/categories, where it provides a clutter amount of categories for audiences to browse through.

Moreover, bloggers don’t really specifically follow a set of categories nor arrange them according to genre in their posting. As far as blogging is concern, there isn’t a fix guideline for bloggers to follow; most of the bloggers follow a set of categories that are available for them according to the blog service provider. For instance, Friendster blog, where it generalizes a genre based on thoughts, such as ‘curiosity’, which is generic in nature and vague.

Source: http://www.guildcraftinc.com/

But Technorati’s blog directory managed to narrow down to six main categories, which are entertainment, lifestyle, sports, business, politics and technology. This is a good set of category to follow as it is on par with most of the print materials, such as newspaper and magazine. Aside from that, there are bloggers who shows their dissatisfactory on Technorati for not including their blogs in its category system (Blogjer 2008). Bloggers gave their acknowledgement and request the listing system to further expand by including their blog site.

Once there is a proper set of categories, a community is form. From there, people with the same interest or same field of expertise are united, for example, http://www. artciulture.com/. This website gathers art and design enthusiast to give their point of view and critics regarding the specific topic. Prior to that, there are also alternative sites for audience to browse through on their affiliation section.

Looking at a different perspective, (Rowse 2008) proposes 7 steps in creating a community within your blog.

- Take the lead and be the community, take control of your reader and tune them to your topic.
- Ask your readers question.
- Give them a task.
- Give them simple assignment to do on your blog.
- Answer your readers (most effective).
- Promote your active readers. For example by including a small section on ‘Top Commentator’.
- Create activities where your audiences are prone to participate, allow them to submit documents. This will motivate them to be more active on your blog.

This is where the independent news provider, MalaysiaToday comes to mind where they adopts some of techniques explained above.

However, blogging community is not bound by just art or news; there are many genres out there that audiences follow closely. Try Google search and see if you get what I mean.

Reference List:


Art Culture 2008, viewed 11 November 2008, <http://www.artculture.com/>.

Bloggersblog 2008, categories, viewed 11 November 2008, <http://www.bloggersblog.com/categories/>.

Blogjer 2008, 70 most popular blogs in Malaysia, viewed 11 November 2008, http://www.blogjer.com/2008/06/29/70-most-popular-blogs-in-malaysia/.

ProBlogger 2008, Rowse, Darren, viewed 11 November 2008, <http://www.problogger.net/archives/2008/04/26/how-to-build-community-on-your-blog/>.

Zarizi, Syahrul, 70 weblog Paling Popular Di Malaysia 2008, viewed 11 November 2008, <http://syedsyahrul.blogspot.com/2008/06/70-weblog-paling-popular-di-malaysia.html>.