Varieties

Blogs come in all different shapes and sizes, and they can be categorized according to a number of criteria, including among other things genre, media type, ownership, purpose, etc. Blogs started out as personal online diaries that were almost exclusively text-based, where people could share details of their lives, or their thoughts, ideas and creativity, with their friends on the Internet. But blogging has come a long way since then, having incorporated many forms of integrated multimedia, including photo, audio and video. It has also expanded into the political, corporate and non-profit spheres, with many people, businesses and organizations realizing how easy and convenient it is to reach a large audience through blogs.

There are still, of course, millions of personal blogs that function as diaries, with users posting text, photos and video about their daily lives. Many bloggers have also created specialized blogs, focused on particular topics or issues, such as political blogs, news blogs, travel blogs, etc. Many of these blogs represent a veritable competition to traditional “mainstream media” (television, radio, newspapers) with their fast and efficient reporting, and what is practically the “peer review” of the blogosphere (the greater community of bloggers).

Businesses have also realized the usefulness of blog-based marketing, promoting their company, products, and services through business blogs, photoblogs, videoblogs, or all of the above. There is also a variety known as a “fake blog,” which pretend to be “independent” third party reviews of a particular product, but really just an “inside job” of the company to deceive its customers.