People who share a common interest with other in the blogosphere can ultimately form a community that feels belonged and close. This is so because the common interest draws people who undergo the same experiences that allow them to not feel isolated. The blogosphere may come off as gigantic but the blogging community reduces its sized allowing bloggers and readers to feel a certain connection.
The blogging community can be said to be a two way process whereby the readers can in turn connect to other similar blog using linking tagging on trends, commenting, RSS feeds for regular updates and automated sign in services offered by your computer can allow you to not only have easy access but stay in constant connection when needed. Among all of the tools, linking still happen to be the fastest way of building blogging communities because of the almost immediate cluster effects. Weblogs tend to come together in clusters as they link to each other. A reader of your site may link to you; you see the link in your referral stats and start reading their blog. You find it interesting, and link back to it. The readers of your blog, some of who keep their own blogs, start reading the other blog, and some of them also link to it. And so it continues. ( Morrison, A 2002)
In detail:
Single Blog/Blogger Centric Community
Single Blog/Blogger Centric Community
A blog that is owned by a single owner or a main organization but has numerous bloggers writing in a blog. Some have multiple writers contributing one single blog created as well. This form of blogging is versatile to the owner as it leaves the blog to set the rules and norms of engagement (White, N 2006) The amazing expansion overtime of the community can then lead on to developing the second form which are Topic Communities. For example: http://www.downes.ca/about.htm
Stephen Downes intentions are to represent the state of the art in online learning and related issues and technology by posting articles and having various open discussions to cultivate the mind through online learning. The blogging community in Stpehens site is majorly formed through the easy usage of discussions in his website.
“Stephen's Web is - and has been since 1995 - today what online learning will be in the future”.
Central Connecting Topic Community
A linked community through a network form sharing the same string interest in a dominion topic or subject matter. Topic centric communities have no single technological platform, with each blogger selecting their own tool. What links them is hyperlinks, in the form of blogrolls, links to other blogs within blog posts, tagging, aggregated feeds (using RSS), trackbacks and comments. Some of these networks have been formalized, such as with blog rings, which share many characteristics with Boundaries Blog Communities (White, N 2006). For example sites like http://globalvoicesonline.org/ is a clear indication of a Central Connecting Topic Community.
Boundaries Communities
Members in the Boundaries Community are required to sign up, register or ‘join’ the intended community and are given the opportunity to construct their own blog. This boundary makes them the closest form to traditional forum based communities (White, N 2006). One common example would be http://www.myspace.com/ .
“Community is alive and well in the blogosphere. It is emerging in a variety of patterns and manifesting in all sizes and types of communities. By beginning to explore their shape and interaction patterns, we can begin to think about how to intentionally nurture blog based communities for specific purposes.”
White, N 2006
References
Mortensen, T & Walker, J 2002, Blogging thoughts: personal publication as an online research tool, viewed 28 April 2011,
Stephen’s Wed Stephen Downes 1995, Stephen’s Wed Stephen Downes, viewed 28 April 2011, <http://www.downes.ca/about_this_website.htm>.
White. N 2006, Blogs and community-launching a new paradigm for online community, going communal, edition 11, viewed on 28 April 2011,
White. N 2006, Blogs and community-launching a new paradigm for online community, going communal, edition 11, viewed on 28 April 2011,
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