Types of Blogging Communities & Methods to Build Blogging Communities

Blogosphere consists of million of bloggers, this phenomenon can be identified as Blogging Communities. According to Owyang (2007), 'an online community is where a group of people with similar goals or interests connect and exchange information using web tools'. In blogosphere, bloggers can visit other blogs and share their common interests and experiences with each other. The mutual interests somehow form a norm in different blogging communities.

Furthermore, bloggers can communicate and form bonds with new friends within the blogosphere. 'Blogging can be passive activity' (Denise 2009). Thus, it is required for individual blogger to step away from personal blog and start immersing oneself in the blogging community. The below are several methods to build blogging communities:

1. Tagging

Tagging (Raymond 2007)

Tagging allows users find a blog post according to a specific keyword. As Kinkeldei (2007) states, 'a tag cloud allows [people] to aggregate the community users' most popular bookmarks and lets new users immediately identify the most important topics related to the blog community'.

2. Allowing Comments

Comment box in Blogger (Chitu 2008)

Bloggers can interact with readers by reading and replying their comments. 'The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs' (Kinkeldei 2007).

3. RSS Feeds (Really Simple Syndication)

RSS Feeds (DFW Renaissance n.d.)

It allows reader to subscribe to updated blog posts. 'RSS Feeds [provide] concise summaries to prospective readers ... [it] encourages [readers] to return' (Housley 2008).

4. Social Networking

Social Network Icons (Search Engine Island 2011)

Social networking is useful for promoting blogs as it becomes a major media in communication. Users can share their blogs through social networking websites, such as Facebook, Twitter and etc.

Three types of blogging communities by Nancy White

Figure 1: Blog Based Communities (White 2006)

'[Blogging communities show] up in three main patterns with a wide variety of hybrid forms emerging between the three' (White 2006). The patterns are reviewed based on technology/design; social architecture; the role of content or subject matter; and other issues (eg. scalability and lifecycle). The three patterns are listed below:

1. Single Blog/Blogger Centric Community

Figure 2: Single Blog/Blogger Centric Community (White 2006)

Blog owners are the central identities in this community. As they get to know each other, they build relationship and personal identity among commentors. Besides, they have ultimate power of control. For instance, a blog owner can remove his/her blog, disable comments and even censor readers. They setting the conversational topic, but commentors cannot control it. In other words, 'there is no expectation of democracy [in this community]' (White 2006).

2. Topic Centric Community

Figure 3: Topic Centric Community (White 2006)

This community is a network formation. The network is linked by a common interest or a topic shared by blogs. 'The boundary of the network is a combination of subject matter (domain) and membership (community)' (White 2006). Power and identity are allocated through the community. As White explains further, 'identity is manifest through the relevance, quality or amount of enjoyment a post provides to others'. Furthermore, tools like hyperlinks, RSS and etc are applied by each blogger. These tools categorize the blog posts according to a mutual topic and they actually blur the boundaries of each individual blog.


3. Boundaried Community

Figure 4: Boundaried Community (White 2006)

In this community, one has to register and join as a member. Members not only can create a blog, but also have internal connections with other members. A defined boundary in the community makes it easier to access other blogs. 

According to White (2006), 'power in boundaried communities is held in part by the "owner" of the platform who can impose rules on the community'. However, power is also applied by members in three typical ways: '(i) Frequency of Posting; (ii) Popularity or Interest as measured by how many comments a blogger gets; (iii) Social Networking Tools associated with the blog that help visualize relationship' (White 2006).

Edublogs is one of the examples of Boundaried Community.

Edublogs (Farmer 2007)

Edublogs is a blog hosting and '[a] custom blogging platforms to individual teachers, school districts and hundreds of thousands of students' (Edublogs 2011). It is rich with features such as discussion tools, video embedding, integration of social networking sites, wikis and etc. Besides, it offers 'a specific set of terms of use, identify what is not allowed, and the rest is up to the participants' (White 2006).

References:

Chitu, A 2008, 'Don't talk about blogger's comments', Google Operating System, blog posting, 15  March, viewed 20 August 2011, <http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2008/03/dont-talk-about-bloggers-comments.html>.

Denise 2009, How do you build community?, blog posting, 9 March, viewed 20 August 2011, <http://www.blogher.com/how-do-you-build-community>.

DFW Renaissance n.d., About the editor, viewed 20 August 2011, <http://www.fwrenaissance.com/outsider-mom/>.

Edublogs 2011, Why Edublogs?, viewed 20 August 2011, <http://edublogs.org/why-edublogs/>.

Farmer, J 2007, 'Edublogs 2.0', Incorporated Subversion, blog posting, 31 July, viewed 20 August 2011, <http://incsub.org/blog/2007/edublogs-20>.

Housley, S 2008, What are RSS Feeds?, viewed 20 August 2011, <http://knol.google.com/k/what-are-rss-feeds#>.

Kinkeldei, B 2007, 'Forging connections and promoting growth through blog communities', Whitepaper Blog Communities, 21 Publish, viewed 20 August 2011, <http://www.21publish.com/pub/21publish/blogging-whitepaper.pdf>.

Owyang, J 2007, 'Defining the term: "online community"', Web Strategy, blog posting, 28 December, viewed 20 August 2011, <http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2007/12/28/defining-the-term-community/>.

Raymond 2007, 'A simple blogger tag cloud widget', Compender, blog posting, 5 December, viewed 20 August 2011, <http://www.compender.com/2007/12/simple-tag-cloud.html>.

Search Engine Island 2011, Social networking site - what benefits can it offer?, blog posting, June, viewed 20 August 2011, <http://www.searchengineisland.com/2011/06/social-networking-site-what-benefits.html>.

White, N 2006, 'Blogs and community - launching a new paradigm for online community?', The Knowledge Tree, 11th edn, Commonwealth of Australia, viewed 20 August 2011, <http://kt.flexiblelearning.net.au/tkt2006/edition-11-editorial/blogs-and-community-%E2%80%93-launching-a-new-paradigm-for-online-community>.