Читать книгу WordPress For Dummies - Sabin-Wilson Lisa - Страница 9

Publishing content and blogging is an evolutionary process, and blogs have evolved beyond personal diaries and journals. Undoubtedly, a blog is a fabulous tool for publishing your personal diary of thoughts and ideas; however, blogs also serve as excellent tools for business, editorial journalism, news, and entertainment. Sometimes, you will find standalone blogs where that is all the website has to offer; other times you will find a full website that contains a blog, but has other offerings as well (products for sale, memberships, newsletters, forums, and so on). Here are some ways that people use blogs and websites powered by WordPress:

✔ Personal: This type of blogger creates a blog as a personal journal or diary. You’re considered a personal blogger if you use your blog mainly to discuss topics that are personal to you or your life – your family, your cats, your children, or your interests (for example, technology, politics, sports, art, or photography). My blog, which you can find at http://lisasabin-wilson.com, is an example of a personal blog.

✔ Business: This type of blogger uses the power of blogs to promote a company’s business services, products on the Internet, or both. Blogs are very effective tools for promotion and marketing, and business blogs usually offer helpful information to readers and consumers, such as tips and product reviews. Business blogs also let readers provide feedback and ideas, which can help a company improve its services. ServerBeach is a good example of a business that keeps a blog on the hosted WordPress.com service at https://serverbeach.wordpress.com.

✔ Media/journalism: More and more popular news outlets, such as Fox News, MSNBC, and CNN, have added blogs to their websites to provide information on current events, politics, and news on regional, national, and international levels. These news organizations often have editorial bloggers as well. Reader’s Digest is an example of such a publication – its WordPress-powered site can be found at www.rd.com.

✔ Citizen journalism: The emergence of citizen journalism coincided with the swing from old media to new media. In old media, the journalists and news organizations direct the conversation about news topics.

With the popularity of blogs and the millions of bloggers who exploded onto the Internet, old media felt a change in the wind. Average citizens, using the power of their voices on blogs, changed the direction of the conversation. Citizen journalists often fact-check traditional media news stories and expose inconsistencies, with the intention of keeping the media or local politicians in check. An example of citizen journalism is the Power Line blog at www.powerlineblog.com.

✔ Professional: This category of blogger is growing every day. Professional bloggers are paid to blog for individual companies or websites. Blog networks, such as Scientific American (http://blogs.scientificamerican.com), have a full network of staff blogs. Also, several services match advertisers with bloggers so that the advertisers pay bloggers to make blog posts about their products. Is it possible to make money as a blogger? Yes, and making money at blogging has become common these days. If you’re interested in this type of blogging, check out Darren Rowse’s ProBlogger blog at www.problogger.net. Darren is considered the grandfather of all professional bloggers.