About.com: Desktop Publishing, ‘The Meaning of Colour’, viewed 14 October 2007 http://desktoppub.about.com/od/choosingcolors/p/color_meanings.htm 

Au, Sharon, Personal Blog, viewed 28 September 2007, http://negi.wordpress.com/

Bauer, E. 2007, Simply Recipes, viewed 7 October 2007, http://www.elise.com/recipes/

BBC, The Editors, viewed 28 September 2007, http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/

Kodak, A Thousand Words, viewed 28 September 2007, http://1000words.kodak.com/

New York Post, Fashion Blog, viewed 28 September 2007, http://blogs.nypost.com/fashion/

Nielsen, J, 2005, Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes, viewed 1st October 2007, http://www.useit.com/alertbox/weblogs.html

Rob’s Book Reviews, viewed 28 September 2007, http://www.bookreviewsblog.com/

TravelBlog, South Korea Travel Blog, viewed 28 September 2007, http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/South-Korea/blogs-page-1.html 

Wikipedia 2007, ‘Blog’, viewed 28 September 2007  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog

Wikipedia 2007, ‘Verdana’, viewed 14 October 2007  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verdana

The process of creating a blog is exciting. I have a personal blog but the blog is hosted by Blogger. I purposely chose to do a blog hosted by another service provider, WordPress. The reason is I want to explore other features in another service provider. The main changes between Blogger and WordPress is that the users cannot make changes to the font, font size and font colour in WordPress while Blogger offers the flexibility to change these features.

This is the first time I am writing on a serious topic. It is indeed tough for me as I have to do research first before writing. However, I must admit that I learn a lot from the information gathered and is able to write confidently in a professional manner.  

It is a nice and enriching experience for me to do this assignment.

Font
The font, verdana, is used consistently on the blog. Accordingly, verdana (Wikipedia, 2007) is a font designed to be read on computer screens even at smaller size. The font, verdana, is of wide proportion and the letter spacing is loose and hence this makes it easier for the readers to read online.  

Colour
The blog is mainly made of three colours, beige, white and brown. Beige symbolises simplicity and calmness. White symbolises cleanliness and can match with any colours easily. Brown symbolises friendliness as it is a colour of nature too. The author most probably wants to create a simple and friendly impression.

Header
The header in this blog is simple and uncluttered. On the left side of the header is the title of the blog while a google search is placed on the right side. In my view, the author wants to make it easier for the readers to search on the Internet for the same recipe shown on the page of her blog.

Subheading 
Under the header, there are four subheadings namely, About, Recipe Index, Subscribe and Shop. On the About page, it introduces the author and the origin of all the recipes in her blog. On the Recipe Index, the readers can do a quick search on different recipes based on subject or recipes. The readers can subscribe to the recipe by filling in their email addresses in the Subscribe Page. They can even do purchases on kitchen equipment in the Shop page.

One noteworthy feature on the right side of the subheading is the ability to adjust the text size of the font on the blog. This is a flexibile and an excellent feature incorporated by the author.

On the whole, this blog is well-organised and user-friendly. Certain additional features such as the Subscribe and Shop allow the readers to engage activity in the cookery. I feel that the author must have done a thorough analysis on the various cookery blogs on the Internet before perfecting her blog.

Structure and Photographs
In the blog, Simply Recipes, the classification of recipes is placed on the left side while advertisements are placed on the right side and some at the bottom. In the centre, it shows the different recipes highlighted on the blog.

For each recipe, the title of the recipe and where it is filed are placed above a photograph of the dish. Below the photograph, there is a short description of the dish. Readers can click on a link to contiue reading the rest of the recipe such as ingredients and methods.

It is easy to navigate and each recipe is shown clearly on one page. On the main page of the blog, each recipe is accompanied by a picture of the dish. This layout makes it easier for the readers to look at the ‘final product’ of the dish before clicking on the cooking instructions.

The photographs on the blog are taken in a close and clear shot. In this way, the readers will be attracted by the appetising dishes.  

In some recipes, the author actually takes the photographs of the step-by-step instructions. This is beneficial to readers in the case where they have no idea of certain cooking terms. For example in the recipe of Chai Ice Cream, the author shows photographs on how to tell if the custard is ready.   

The blog that I am going to analyse is a recipe blog , Simply Recipes, created by Elise Bauer.

Elsie is a Silicon Valley consultant. She started posting recipes on this blog to document all her family recipes. Her parents are great cooks! His dad, particularly, enjoys experimenting with food.

Simply Recipes was noted in Time’s magazine’s 50 Coolest Websites of 2006 as one of the greatest resource for cooks. In addition, it was also voted Best Food Blog Overall in the 2006 Food Blog Awards.

A news article on BBC News website shed light on the popularity of blogging. 

This news article suggests that a blog is created every second. So, what causes the rise in the creation of blogs?
Basically, there are two main reasons.

1. Blogs are easy to create and most importantly, it is free. Free blogging services such as MSN Spaces, Blogger, LiveJournal, AOL Journals, WordPress and Movable Type are easily accessible to the public.

2. It enables people to converse through comments and share their thoughts and ideas online with friends and strangers.

The statistics in the news article are also encouraging. It states that 13% of the monitored blogs are updated regularly on a weekly basis and 55% of the new bloggers continue to post after three months since they first started.

It is also revealed that a new form of blogging, moblog, has emerged. Moblog allows people to send pictures and text with the use of camera phones.

A bad blog will result in low readership that kills the interest of visiting the blog the second time. Readers will find it time-wasting to read a blog with bad mistakes.

In here, I shall reveal the bad mistakes of a blog.

1. Senseless Posting Titles
Readers do not have the time to read every single post on the blog. If you do not give a meaningful posting title, readers will have a hard time finding postings that pique their interest. In the long run, they will not visit your blog anymore.

2. Nameless Links
Links in a blog can be clicked on with the mouse to move to another website, other people’s blog or any post in your own blog. 

An example of bad link can be in this form.
Click here to see more.  
The author does not indicate where the link will lead to and hence the readers have no idea what they will be reading next.

3. Categories of Postings
Do not tag the postings on your blog to all categories. Be selective and tag each posting to the relevant category. This will help the readers to save time by clicking on the correct posting that interest them.   

4. Irregular Posting Frequency 
You should update your blog regularly, preferably on a weekly basis. This will attract the readers to visit your blog regularly.  

5. No Clear Objectives
If your blog is not focused, the readership may not be as high as what you expected. Usually, people read blogs with a clear objective on what interest them. Hence it is better to focus your blog on a certain subject.  

If you want to know more about the top ten design mistakes, you can read more here.

There are various types of blogs in the world of Internet. In here, I will introduce you to a few different types of blogs that pique my interest.

A blog on photography – A Thousand Words by Kodak http://1000words.kodak.com/ 

A blog on food and recipes – Simply Recipes Food and Cooking Blog http://www.elise.com/recipes/

A blog on book reviews – Rob’s Book Review http://www.bookreviewsblog.com/

A blog on travel – South Korea Travel Blog http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/South-Korea/blogs-page-1.html

A personal blog – Sharon Au’s Personal Blog http://negi.wordpress.com/

Editors’ blog – BBC News The Editor Blog http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/ 

A fashion blog – New York Post Fashion http://blogs.nypost.com/fashion/

Welcome to my blog. I hope you will enjoy reading my blog as much as I publish my future posts.

I was totally taken aback when I learned that I needed to submit a weblog for my assignment. This is really new to me. I do have a personal blog but I never expect any of the assignments in my entire learning years to be a blog.

Blogging is a new communication tool. Ideally, it is supposed to inform others of your daily lives, personal views, commentaries and analyses on certain issues. However, I do come across blogs that are used as a storage capacity for recipes, stories and etc.

Nevertheless, I feel that the objective of the blog is very important. If you want to let friends to know about your personal life, you should keep it light-heartedly. If you want to discuss your personal views on certain issues, it should be written with great depth and in an analytical way.  You may ask why. The reason is simple. Make your blog focused so as to attract a certain group of readers. If they are interested in the objective of your blog, the possibilities of visiting your blog is higher.  

So, what is the objective of my blog here? Well, my objective is to discuss anything related to blogs. In here, I will introduce you to a few blogs, analyse these blogs critically and discuss about articles regarding blogs.