Using Specialist IT communication channels Unit 1 Task

Using Specialist IT communication channels Unit 1 Task 8

Blogs • Blogs are basically web logs which are updated frequently by the author and are usually associated with a specific topic, these can be used as daily diaries about peoples everyday lives , political views or social commentaries. Recently blogs are becoming multiauthor based allowing them to be easily used in a variety of different ways such as companies to communicate with customers and stakeholders also media outlets use them for example newspapers, universities, and think tanks. In addition a growing popularity in microblogging (blogging with a small amount of characters) by sites such as twitter has allowed people to keep concise updates on their lives.

Brief History • Blogs began to appear within the late 1990 s with the arrival of web publishing tools giving people the ability to post content on the internet without needing technical knowledge as HTML. • It is unknown who was the first to start a blog but the first blogs were human guided internet web tours or link driven sites with personal commentaries. Diary style blog from 22 nd February 1995

Where are they used? • Blogs are primarily internet based and have a large amount of sites dedicated for people to create blogs. Some of these include Tumblr, Weebly, Wordpress and Twitter which have all rose in popularity in recent years with political and media based blogs appearing.

Why are they used? • Blogs are used because there are different types of blogs so that they can be used in diverse ways to cater to individual users. • Some of these include: • Personal Blog – An on going diary which is written by an individual • Microblogging – Small pieces of content such as text, images and links for a more portable type of communication e. g. Twitter. • Reverse Blog – These are written by several authors contributing to one topic. • Corporate and organizational Blogs – used to communicate between employees or as marketing purposes.

Advantages and Disadvantages Advantages of Blogs Disadvantages of Blogs Allows you to write down your thoughts on anything that interests you. What you publish is available for anyone to see, you could offend someone by mistake. Quick and easy to set up and use. Personal blogs may contain inaccurate information or have a biased opinion. Quick and easy to update and add new posts. They can be time consuming, finding the time to write and have regular updates can be a chore. People can leave comments on your blog. People may leave rude of inappropriate comments on your blog. There are millions of blogs to chose from to read. Many blogs are dull and may take a while to find some worthwhile ones.

My blog • For my blog I decided to create one which would house a section with a personal blog dedicated to what was going on in my life and then the main part being a blog based on History and Current Affairs to give people small but interesting information about famous historical figures/events and current affairs in the hopes to educate and spark discussion about the world. The primary goal is to aid my A-level studies in history so that I can improve my writing and research skills but also give some small interesting background on people/events.

• I chose to use weebly to create my blog as I knew how user friendly it was and that I was comfortable using it. Firstly I chose blog from the selection which directed me to a theme for my blog and I chose a simple one because I intended my blog to be of a simple yet serious nature.

• Once I had chosen a theme I was given access to the editing tools weebly had to offer which allowed me to create my blank canvas into the bases of my blog adding in a new banner, title and different pages to access.