The corporate blog as an emerging genre of computer ... - Oapen

A classification of blogs following Herring 31
blog and will consequently refer to himself in the first person in posts. The
existence of “fake bloggers” is another indication of the salience of identity in
blogs, not only of “real” vs. “fake” identity, but of the blog as a complex speech
event that requires an individual’s voice in order to take place. 7
M7: Private messaging
The facet of private messaging does not apply to blogs, although it should be
noted that comments made by blog readers are often initially only available to
the blog owner, who has the ability to moderate (i.e. approve and publish or
reject and discard) them. In that sense, comments are initially private messages
to the blog owner, who may then chose to make them publicly available, modify,
or discard them as he sees fit.
M8: Filtering
Filtering as a medium factor needs special consideration in relation to blogs.
Herring’s classification seems to be geared towards services which, while being
available via the Internet, are not generally part of the fully accessible, search
engine-indexed Web. While services such as ICQ, Skype and Second Life all
have various interfaces with the World Wide Web, they are distinct from the
Web itself. Although web message boards are part of the WWW, they still
frequently require some sort of registration before users can post messages in
them and sometimes registration is also required for read access. Blogs differ
fundamentally in that respect. As websites, they are part of the WWW itself,
and thus not only accessible to humans, but also to search engines, which index
them thoroughly (see for example Technorati). As a consequence, readers
become aware of blogs either via referral (whether from other Internet sites
or by hearing or reading about them elsewhere) or via search, both of which
presume an interest in the content on behalf of the reader. Because search engines
index the content of web sites (including blogs) and match it with search
queries, blogs exist in a unique communicative environment. Whereas in other
contexts a speaker must to a greater or lesser extent tailor his contributions
to suit the expectations of his listeners, a blog theoretically attracts an ad-hoc
readership that is tailored to its content, however specific the content may be. 8
Variable, opaque and passive participation means that bloggers can make only
very limited assumptions about the uptake of their message by readers.
M9: Quoting
Quoting and linking to other blogs or websites is common in blogs, and some
varieties (i.e. filter blogs) consist primarily of quoted or linked content (see
figure 2.5).
7 A prominent example of this kind of blog-based parody was The Secret Diary of Steve
Jobs. The blog authored by Forbes Magazine editor Daniel Lyons became vastly popular as
the tongue and cheek “secret diary” of Apple Inc founder and CEO Steve Jobs. The revelation
of Lyons’ identity was a major event that received wide coverage in the tech media (Stone,
2007).
8 Compare also with the concept of the Long Tail (Anderson, 2006). It postulates that the
Internet creates an infinite number of microaudiences which are small but collectively larger
than any mass audience. Also see section 2.17.