Successful Blogs and Its Components

After reading blog after blog, and looking up information about blogs, I believe the definition of a blog can be the following: a webpage which a person or persons can express their personal, artistic, athletic, and/or political view. Whether the expression is professional or childish, it is still a blog. However, the essence of a successful blog has different standards. A successful blog seems to have a balance of three components:

1) Popularity
2) Entertainment
3) High-speed

Popularity:
MySpace and Facebook. Without explanation, most people can see those two titles and instantly recognize that both are large-scale blogging sites. If a person wanted to create a blog that had a better chance of being noticed, it would seem obvious to create a blog on either (or both) of the sites.

Entertainment:
Consider both MySpace and Facebook. What attracts one to read someone’s blog? Is it a catchy title, like Neil Strauss’s MySpace video title “Don’t be yourself?”-or the logo used to advertise the blog Boing Boing? Does it follow Richard Broderick’s “30 second rule” (i.e. does the blog’s material catch the reader’s attention?). -Or is it hard-hitting serious blogs like those featured on Daily Planet?

High-Speed:
How often is the blog updated? Does the blog mainly talk about current events? –or is the blog specifically set up to cover only a certain subject matter (i.e. PJ’s Blog-a-beatz blog limited to poetry).

From what I have seen after viewing several blogs and reading about blogs, all three of the above mentioned components need to be put together to make a successful blog. Blogs such as MySpace and Daily Planet are great examples of successful blogs.

Sources:

Boing Boing. Happy Mutants LLC . 17 Jan. 2008 http://www.boingboing.net/.

Daily Planet. Ed. Mary Turck. 1 May 2006. Twin Cities Media Alliance. 14 Jan. 2008 .

"Mom's Birthday!." PJ's blog-a-beatz. Word Press. 16 Jan. 2008 http://thinklikepj.wordpress.com/2008/01/16/moms-birthday/.

Strauss, Neil . "Don't be yourself." Rules of the Game. MySpace. 17 Jan. 2008 .