A Commentary On News of blog:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6682755.stm

"The Chinese government is backing down from plans to force millions of Chinese bloggers to register their real names"

While I am still thinking whether i am stupid enough to use my full Chinese name as the blogring name of this blogger ( couldn't amend the name as at this moment..), i find it interesting to read the above news about the plan of Chinese government to force bloggers to use their REAL name to register.

Recently, the unresponsbile action or offensive discussion of the bloggers were also criticised by many people - there's also case in Hong Kong that bloggers is posting discussion on committing crime. It seems that the plan to force citizen to use their real name to register would solve this problem. Be that as it may, why it is considered a failure?? I believe the following reasons counts for that:

Firstly, the suppress of freedom of speech may damage one country;'s image. It is considered that the free internet service has is own valuable vritualised world so that people could interact in another level other than actual fact-to-face interaction. Using real name in the internet would definitely take this enjoyment away from all the bloggers and in turn, even affect the people who is in contact with the bloggers in China. This may create a negative effect on one country's own prospect, esepcially for she is involving in the Olympics game.

Secondly, it's actually quite difficult to execute the plan - The blogger service is still running for business and if one need to register with REAL Name, the cost of vertifying is high and the blogger may turn to other country, leaving China with no free service provider on that any more. For those blogger service provider require to cost money, they may charge the blogger more so allow one to reigster with other name, and it's difficult for China to monitor as many of the service provider is also overseas-based. If she persists in doing that, international conflict maybe raised.

It is the fact that both the affirmative and opposing views would exist in any country in the world. As long as they are just expressing their opinion without violating any basic rules (e.g. foul language, illegal intention, etc), it should be a freedom for them to voice out their opinion in this implicit way.

Online Design vs Print Design

May i first introduce to you one of my drawings before i elaborate the point of design

Yup, it already catch your attention, and most probably the most salient part of the xanga.

For printing design, one could print the above drawings as a large A4size picture to get your attentiona and elaborate the points in paragraph lengths. HOwever, if i do that in this xanga, what will it be?? it may takes one LONG LONG time to load the picture, and the audience could easily close the window and see the other things.

As Parker suggest in (2003) p.280 - keep design which require online distribution as simple as possible. Therefore, i would say, Web design is somehow require more the editor to put the salient part in a clear, one-direction rolling down way to LET audience's hand to choose and click, like the newspaper website of appledaily in Hong Kong www.appledaily.com.hk. The title should be clear enough and if possible, make it shorter and easier. Somehow, one got so many choices in the internet and more relatively impatient. If the heading of news in the scrolling bar is long enough, one may get tired more easily and turn to other websites.

However, Print Design is somehow more 2-drection, rolling to every pages one by one by the real hands. One can choose to read one by one. Reading in this sense could be less-energy-consumed so that allow one to read more paragraph and sentence in one horizontal level. Therefore, relatively, more graphic design could be played with as it would catch more attention.

In short, print design should be more design-oriented, so that those theory of Given-New and Real-Ideal concept of Information value could be more effectively applied to them ( suggested by Kress(2006) p. 175 - 200 ) as the readers can relatively more concentrate on the source
Rather, online design is somehow more Simple, eye-catching-oriented, so that those theory of Salience ( suggested by Kress(2006) p. 201-203) could be more effectively applied as the readers is relatively less concentrated on the source, putting more emphasis on simple data which attract them ( like the photo here)




 

What makes blog different from a website??

Maybe it's better for me to start with what is a blog. Typing it in yahoo one can find thousands of explanation of this term, like those included in the following link

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2005/02/05/what-is-a-blog/

The author of the page define it as " a type of website that is usally arranged in chronological order from the most recent post at the top of the main page to the older entries towards the buttom"

In view of many definition, i would say a blog is a kind of website which is usually an online diary, or a topic specific journal which could be started by everybody in the internet - everyone can be a "blogger"!

Therefore, the main differences of a blog with a general website is generalised as follow:
a) no matter what's the purpose of the blog, it's somehow related to a timeline, or a chronological order - it's a web wordpad recording. A general websites would is not made according to the timeline.
b) it's usually owned by a person or group of people - as long as it's a record by people. HOwever a general website's identity is not limited to people - it could be corporation-oriented. One can find McDonald's website, but not a blog specifically owned by McDonald's - however they maybe anybody's blog who clam himself/herself working in McDonald, however

Why Blog???

What makes it become so popular among the internet users? It is considered that some of the following points account for that

1. Free service provider.
Yup! The answer is it's Free, like the xanga.com i am using now!! One could enjoy many blogging services like diary entries, photo uploading, and music uploading for FREE only upon a few steps of online registration! What you need is only to access to the internet! This is the main reason of increasing number of signing up of accounts of different service provider, no matter whether he/she is really using it actively or just use it to comment on the others' blog!

2. Instant,easy information sharing
Initially, people used to share information through kind of websites or ICQ info part. However, the interactive element of these 2 are much less than blogger service, and it is supposed to be even less user-friendly to set up a homepage than only signing up for a blog. People sharing same kind of interests could reply to each other by means of blog. If one could set up a blog in less than 3 minutes, will he/she bother to learn Frontpage or even HTML to make up one's homepage? ( of course, professional web designer is a definite exception ) If one could leave message on the blog in each other with many detailed information, will he/she still bother to use ICQ to search any people sharing common interests, which maybe fake data?

3.The capability to make private/protected entry.
To certain extent, online diary could also serve as the function of traditional diary - one could private all kinds of entries for only personal use. Adding to that, one could even make different kinds of so called protected entries - only authorised people could read the assigned diary. This is especially welcomed by many people who want to share information with only his/her cloest buddies, but at the same time want to publicse some other passage in their diary. This kind of entry type so user friendly that attract many people to use it.

4. Able to Make CHANGE and REVIEW on it.
Yup, it is attractive enough to make change to the diary we have written. The large capacity of the service provider allow one to save many entries and at the same time, one could review and amend what they have written before.  This allows one to learn from tracing back the past and if nessary, amend anything of posts in the older dates if they want.

In short, one can easily write, re-arrange, amend a blog at any time, at any place ( could access to the internet), and communicate with anybody by means of that. And that's why you and me, would also be involved in blogging now!

It's all about "Blog"

In old days, I guess many people could hardly imagine that posting one's diary for the public is already become the TREND right now - everyone is also "blogger" now, no matter which type of blog you are trying to develop. I would like to use this blog as a platform to discuss more on this issue and pucliation related topics.

Types of Blog
Generally speaking, it is observed that whatever type of bloggers could also be found in the internet. A rough groupping are as follow:

a) A real diary type
Actually, it's not until these 2 - 3 years the term "blogger" is introduced by the web browser. In the early stage of blog, it is usually named as "online diary". Following this tradition, many of the blogger nowadays is still using it as a online diary for routine life sharing.

b)A topic-oriented type
Many people also consider their own blog as a platform of information sharing of some specific topic, like photography, advertising, sports, music or even dating. Bloggers sharing similar kind of interest could leave comment on each other blogs and form kinds of union, or so called " Blogrings" to facilitate communication between them.

c)Promotion / Business type
Celebrity like David Beckham would also write their blog to share their daily life experience to their fans - so that their fans are keep updated. It can also serves as a tool to promote their own activities. Some enterprise managing grade would even use their own personal blog to serve as a service desk to answer their customer questions

d)Combined type.
Some people would transform their weblog as a mulit-service platform - combining diary, specific topic disucssion and promotion at the same time.

No matter which type of blog it is, it is indisputable that the number of bloggers is increasing and more people is get engaged in that. Why makes it like that? I would try to discuss more about that in the next passage