Wikipedia defined blog as a website that usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Nowadays, blog have become one of the most popular ways to communicate in the Internet. Blog, which originally comes from the word web log, is another form of diary that is posted to some domain in the Internet and can be easily accessed by everyone. It becomes more popular when there is a lot of website provided a free hosting, like Wordpress, Blogspot, Tumblr, and Multiply. The number of blog keeps increasing everyday. Up to now, more than 500.000 blog have been made by Indonesian blogger. These blogger do blogging for many reasons. Come along with these reason the content of blog can be various. It could be a daily life story, poem, or even a prose; marketing tools; and citizen journalism.
At the beginning most of blogger use their blog as a diary. These kinds of blogger write anything about their life in their blog. Diary’s blog could contain a daily life story, poem, or even a prose. These blogger does not have aim to gain profit from their blog. They made a blog as a tool to release their emotion, to get rid of anger, and to share their feeling with the readers through their writing. For example, ramdaffe.wordpress.com and mvgirl.net, the owner of these blog posts their daily activities, their family’s life, their love stories, and their traveling experiences in their blog.
If a blog is accessed by lots of people, the owner of the blog can gain profit from their blog. Thus, some advertiser will consider the blog as a good place to put their advertisement. Advertisers are willing to pay the owner of the blog if they think it would help them gain a big selling of their products. For example, some advertiser put their banner in Neville Hobson blog and paid him because his blog, which blog’s contents are intersection of business, communication and technology, have a lot visitor which means that their advertise will seen by huge number of people who read the blog. Another examples are kioskiki.co.cc that sell education books with low price and byputy’s blog that using her blog to advertise her own hand-made bag’s products.
Some journalist to report news that cannot be published in the main media uses Blog. Blog is a more democratic and honest media compared to the traditional media such as print media, TV, or radio. To make a posting in blog, journalists do not have to pay attention to the principle of journalism. Besides, there is no date line to submit their work and there is lot of space or pages to report their news. For example, The Economist magazine, which published economic-politic news, their journalists blog have more personal stories and more touching stories about the society’s life in where the incident happened.
In conclusion, the content of blog could be a diary’s writing, marketing tool, and citizen journalism with various purposes. The popularity of blog, which keeps increasing everyday, will urge more people to make blog. Furthermore, the variety of blog’s contents and purposes will be increased.
