Blogosphere
Blogging is now considered a huge cyber trend amongst internet users all around the world. Blogging has become a phenomenon for people to build relations and express themselves. According to analyst Gartner, Technorati reported that 100,000 new blogs were being created every day, and 1.3 million blog posts were written.
It was last reported by The Blog Herald Blog Count February 2006, there is an estimate 200 million bloggers in existence. Therefore we can guess that by this year, the number of blogs being created must be huge.
(source from: http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=3809188252404769645&postID=1249609799174073926)number of bloggers by 2006
Blogging Trends
The main blogging trends are social blogging, political blogging and economical blogging. Social blogging consist of personal blogs, community blogs, food blogs, technology blogs and entertainment blogs. Political blogging just focuses on politics and economical blogging consist of blogs that has to do with business and making profits.
According to Microsoft (2006), most Asians does social blogging to maintain and build social relations by expressing themselves and share their lives with family and friends. In Malaysia 44% of bloggers blog about personal stuff and technology, 16% on politics and another 40% on business and corporate as stated by the sabahan.com (2006) website.
United Kingdom bloggers also mostly does social blogging but they vary by a bit to Malaysian bloggers because they mainly blog about technology as said by Stuart Brown.
(source from: http://www.modernlifeisrubbish.co.uk/article/leading-average-top-blog-trends)Blogging trends in UK
Effect on Malaysian Communities
Blogging gives positive effects to Malaysian communities because it provides benefits to the community. Example when talking about political issues in Malaysian, the mainstream newspapers are biased towards the government because the newspapers companies are mostly owned by the government. Therefore if Malaysian communities want to know the other side of the story, they can turn political blog like Jeff Ooi.
Reference List:
1. 50 Most Influential Blogs in Malaysia 2007, sabahan.com, viewed on 1 May 2008, at http://www.sabahan.com/2007/02/06/50-most-influential-blogs-in-malays
2. Blogging 'set to peak next year' 2006, BBC News, viewed on 1 May 2008, at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6178611.stm
3. Brown, S 2006, Leading Average: Top Blog Trends, Modern Life, viewed 30 April 2008, at http://www.modernlifeisrubbish.co.uk/article/leading-average-top-blog-trends
4. Duncan 2006, The Blog Herald Blog Count February 2006: 200 Million Blogs In Existence, Blog Herald, viewed 1 May 2008, at http://www.blogherald.com/2006/02/02/the-blog-herald-blog-count-february-2006-200-million-blogs-in-existence/
5. Microsoft 2006, Blogging Phenomenon Sweeps Asia, viewed on 30 April 2008, at http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/11-28-2
