Types of blogs

1. Task: Research
1. What is a Blog, what does it do?
A blog (a portmanteau of the term web log)[1] is a personal journal published on
the World Wide Web consisting of discrete entries ("posts") typically displayed in
reverse chronological order so the most recent post appears first. Blogs are
usually the work of a single individual, occasionally of a small group, and often are
themed on a single subject. Blog can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain
or add content to a blog.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog
Many people have started to create their own personal blogs to express their
thoughts and feelings. Blogging is not just limited to personal usage however.
There are a lot of blogs that follow a theme such as: sports, politics, philosophy,
social commentary, etc. These blogs comment on their own specific themes. This
way blogging becomes a medium in which people can share their knowledge and
opinions about a variety of themes and topics. Internet businesses have also
started their own blogs to keep their customers and business partners informed on
the latest product news and reviews.
http://www.whatdoesblogstandfor.com/
2. What types of blog are available? Provide 3 examples (URLs) and front-
page screenshots of blogs that cater for a specific demographic.
Types of Blogs
There are many different types of blogs on WordPress.com, and they span over
100 languages. You can browse our tags to get a sense of the topics covered by
WordPress.com bloggers, or take a look at these examples of popular blog
categories:
Personal: This is the broadest category and includes blogs about personal
topics like politics, music, family, travel, health, you name it.
Business: Professionals ranging from realtors to lawyers and stock brokers
are using WordPress to share their expertise, and companies have
discovered the power of blogs to personally engage with their customers.

2. Schools: WordPress is a great way for teachers and students to collaborate
on classroom projects.
Non-profits: Foundations, charities, and human rights groups find our
blogs to be great tools to raise awareness and money for their causes.
Politics: Members of parliament, political parties, government agencies,
and activists using our blogs to connect with their constituencies.
Military: Members of the military blog to report what they see happening in
various parts of the world and to stay in touch with their families.
Private: Some people make their blogs private to share photos and
information within families, companies, or schools.
Sports: We’ve got teams, athletes, and fans using blogs to express and
share their passion for various sports.
How-to, tips and reviews: There are lots of blogs that share tips and
reviews about cooking, games, music, books, movies, and so on.
Blogs that violate our advertising policy or fall into one of the following categories
are not allowed on WordPress.com:
Scraper blogs: Blogs that take content from other blogs and re-publish it
without permission (this is sometimes called scraping). If a blog contains
stolen content, it’s gone!
SEO blogs: Blogs that are written for search engines instead of humans.
These blogs are dedicated to trying to fool Google and other search engines
into ranking them or the sites they link to highly. WordPress.com is not
meant for this type of activity.
Affiliate marketing blogs: Blogs with the primary purpose of driving
traffic to affiliate programs and get-rich-quick schemes (“Make six figures
from home!!”, “20 easy steps to top profits!!”etc.). This includes multi-level
marketing (MLM) blogs and pyramid schemes. To be clear, people writing
their own original book, movie or game reviews and linking them to Amazon
or people linking to their own products on Etsy do NOT fall into this
category. Here is a thread in the support forums that talks more about
which affiliate links are OK or not OK.
Warez blogs: Blogs that promote pirated copies of eBooks, software
packages, music, movies, games, etc.
Automated blogs: Blogs that are generated by computers, including
randomly generated blogs, blogs that re-publish press releases, marketing
material, search engine results, link dumps or any other mass-produced
content.
http://en.wordpress.com/types-of-blogs/

3. http://onecoolsitebloggingtips.com/2010/09/02/blogging-demographic-groups/
http://viraltechnologies.com/blog/?tag=demographics

4. http://demographymatters.blogspot.com.au/
3. Compile a list of 5 blogging systems and list their strengths and
weaknesses. Specifically look at customisability, ease-of-use, is there any
advertising? Can I remove any sponsorship branding? Can I delete it/ re-
name it? Can I use it for commercial purposes? Is there free technical
support? Is it search-engine-friendly? Can I embed RSS feeds? Can I add a
site statistics tool to find out the number of visitors? Is it secure (is it hack-
proof?)
1. WordPress
WordPress is the most famous and widely-used blogging platform. It features a
very intuitive web-based installer so anyone from skill level novice to expert can
quickly install the software without any hiccups.
The WordPress community is a major asset to the blogging software. It has one of
the largest and most passionate communities of developers and users, so one
could find just about any theme or plugin imaginable. The possibilities for
extending the software are endless, and many web sites and services have used
the WordPress code base to build entirely different applications. WordPress also

5. features integration with Akismet, one of the most effective spam protection
systems for blogging software.
WordPress makes it easy for new bloggers to not only install the software, but also
to download and install automatic upgrades to plugins with only one click. The
learning curve for WordPress is fairly minimal, and if a new user runs in to
problems, they can always check the extensive documentation. WordPress is
perfect for the new blogger who wants to get his feet wet installing their first blog
software, or the advanced developer who’s looking to extend the stable code into
something entirely different.
If you want to start a multiple-blog site, you can also check out WordPress MU.
WordPress MU is the same code base as the mature WordPress single blog code
base, with some added functionality.
2. Movable Type
While WordPress is the most widely-adopted blogging platform, Movable Type has
the most prolific installs of high-traffic blogs. Their high-profile installs include
(and certainly aren’t limited to) Huffington Post (the most popular blog on the
Web), Gawker blogs (Lifehacker, Gizmodo, etc.), BoingBoing and dooce.
A major reason for so many high-profile sites using Movable Type is the built-in
support for multiple blogs running on one install. You can quickly create as
many blogs as you wish, creating blog networks like Huffington Post and Gawker
instantly.
While Moveable Type has historically been a step behind WordPress in terms user
friendliness, Movable Type has made great strides to improve their interface and
installer, and possibly the biggest step forward recently was moving the platform
to open source. This has grown the community considerably.
Movable Type is a great choice if you want to run multiple blogs or a blog network
with the software that can handle large amounts of traffic.
3. ExpressionEngine
ExpressionEngine is a very robust blogging platform, but isn’t free. The best
feature about ExpressionEngine is the feature to publish multiple websites, either
using different subdomains on a single domain, or across multiple domains.
You could use one code base to power multiple sites across multiple domains. The
software features an extremely clean and simple backend that shouldn’t confuse
the blogger. Designers and developers love ExpressionEngine for the fact that it’s
quite easy to hand over a site and have the client update his own blog. It’s a solid
all-in-one package.
ExpressionEngine is really geared for people who are trying to start a multi-blog
site, but anyone can use the software quite easily thanks to its thoughtful and
elegant design. A single license costs $99.95, but if you’re running a personal blog
you can download the core version of EE.
4. Drupal

6. Drupal isn’t your typical blogging software. While it has an incredible community
behind the code and many blogs use it for blogging software, it’s not just blogging
software. Drupal is community software.
Drupal really shines as blog software for a blogging community. Performancing is
a great example of using Drupal as a community of blogs. Whether you want to
power one blog to a 100, Drupal is an excellent choice.
Another strong point about Drupal is the versatility of the software. It comes
packaged with a robust user system, but also a lot of community-friendly features
like forums, books (for creating documents in a “book” structure) and a tracker
which allows you to follow updates and content that other users have published
recently.
Drupal also comes with a large community of developers and modules. With these
modules, one could build any type of site or add nearly any sort of functionality to
their Drupal installation. Many top-notch sites use Drupal to publish their multiple
blogs and user communities. Performancing, Spread Firefox, The Onion,
and Ubuntu and others.
Drupal is the perfect blogging software for anyone wanting to add a community to
their blog with forums and extensions.
5. Textpattern
Textpattern is a much simpler blogging platform than any of the above mentioned
software. It isn’t even packaged with a WYSIWYG editor, and instead relies on
the Textile mark-up language to format the text.
Textpattern is very similar to ExpressionEngine, except without many of the
features that ExpressionEngine provides out of the box. (You can read more about
the differences between the two blog platforms.) While Textpattern is a stable,
mature piece of software, it’s not the top choice for beginners, as they have to
learn the Textile language or write posts in html. If they want to have a WYSIWYG
editor, they’ll have to install the plugin, as it’s not provided by default.
There are plenty of themes and extensions, and while the developer community
isn’t as large as WordPress’s, Textpattern has an extremely loyal and dedicated
developer community.
Textpattern is a great choice for a more advanced blogger who appreciates
simplicity and doesn’t mind learning Textile.
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/08/29/10-weblog-engines-reviewed/
4. Create your own blog –
http://www.resumejourney.blogspot.com.au/

7. 5. Discussion Forum - share your Blog with others in this course – go to
Introduction forum.