Blogs Phenomenon

Nowadays, there are many blogs created everyday. Blogs have introduced a myraid of new voices to the channels of information exchange online. People who "Blog" are called Bloggers, and there are hundreds, thousands of Blogs on the Net today.

The blogosphere is an extensive conversation that's playing a rising role in creating trends, reporting news and opinion, and generating buzz. (Nelson, 2006) There are some 9 million blogs out there, with 40,000 new ones popping up each day. Many blogs include links, or underlined words that, when clicked, carry readers to other Web pages. (Pinto, 2005)

Besides, blogs are beginning to demand big readerships and some even gain revenue by selling their own advertising space. Rhodes University New Media studies head, Vincent Maher (2006), says blogs are a communication revolution allowing people to converse across national and cultural boundaries and become part of a new global public sphere that wasn’t available to readers otherwise. “Blogging is a lot of fun and many people have started doing it. It’s practically part of the social fabric of the web now. The excitement is largely due to the way it gives ordinary people cheap and easy-to-use communication tools for potentially mass audiences without the supervision of an editor,” says Maher.

However, blogging brought a lot of benifits to community. Blogs created many important and new opportunities for publishers. Publishers may view blogs as just another source of competiton for readers. Bloggers can act as a fliter for the information online, making it interesting and unique new voices in the blogosphere. (Nelson, 2006) Blogs are low-cost channel for book publicity and advertising. Book publishers are taking advantage of these opportunities and even launching their own blogs to connect and communicate with audiences. (Nelson, 2006)

In conclusion, blogging could be an efficient and effective alternative for information and knowledge transfer, resulting in a more productive workforcein libraries.





Reference Lists:

1. Dvorak, J, C 2002, The Blog Phenomenon, viewed on 12 June 2009, http://www.pcmag.com/
   
2. Nelson, M 2006, The blog phenomenon and the book publishing industry, Springer New York.
   
3. Pinto, J 2005, Blog phenomenon all around, viewed on 14 June 2009, http://www.isa.org/