PhotoBlogging Phenomenon
As advances in communication technology are made, people are finding it much easier to record their lives and share them with friends, family, and anyone else who might be interested. Social networking sites such as Myspace, Facebook and Photospace have revolutionized the way people keep in touch with each other, and blog sites such as LiveJournal have brought the idea of keeping a diary out from behind closed doors and into public domain. This idea of share and share alike has even caught on in the world of photography. Photo blogging has quickly become one of the most popular forms of blogging and sharing information with the world.
A photoblog, also known as a photolog or phlog, allows people to share their photographs with friends and family in a simple blog format. Photo blogging gained popularity in the early 2000s as it became easier and easier to get high quality digital pictures on phones, computers, and cameras. And as picture storage capacities increased, more people started looking for ways to share the dozens or even hundreds of pictures they found themselves taking on a regular basis. Similar to regular blogging, photo blogging takes advantage of the easy-to-read blog format but focuses almost entirely on pictures, with little text, if any. The appeal of photo blogging, of course, is the ability to share pictures with a large number of people without having to send out individual physical copies or large, bulky e-mails. You also avoid jamming someone’s inbox with pictures they aren’t really interested in seeing. You also have the potential to share your pictures with people you don’t even know. These reasons and more have helped boost the popularity of photo blogging and turned it into one of the world’s favorite web applications.
There are three main kinds of photo blogs. The first are found on individual domains. This type of photo blogging is becoming more and more rare, as it requires the photo blogger to secure a domain, set up a webserver, and install or write the CMS (content management system) code for the site. Maintaining these types of sites can be costly and time-consuming, so most people tend to avoid this photo blogging option.
The second type of photo blog is one that appears on blog sites designed mainly for text. Sites such as Blogger use devices called add-ons or plugins. These enable the blogger to turn code from text into a picture and are becoming more common on most blogging and social networking sites.
The most recent incarnation of the photo blog are sites that have been designed specifically for photo blogging. The content management system code for sites such as Flickr, Fotolog and Photospace allow blog publishers many options as to what their photo blog will look like to viewers and even how their pictures will be presented.
Photo blogging has caught on in popularity over the past few years, especially in Latin America. Millions of users have logged into photo blogging sites such as Photospace to take advantage of their free website galleries and picture posting capabilities, especially in countries such as Chile, Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico. Many sites not only offer photo blogging, but also video posting, album search capabilities, profile browsing, and music and text add-ons.
But photo blogging isn’t only for personal use. Many business owners are finding photo blogging an effective and inexpensive way to market their business. Companies are creating photo blogs and using them to advertise current products, showcase new products, and answer questions customers may have.
Creating a photo blog is easy. First, make sure you have a way to capture digital images. Digital cameras and camera phones are probably the most popular methods, but many people make use of internal cameras in their laptops or external web cams at home. Second, create an account on a photo blogging site such as Fotolog or Photospace. Most of these sites offer free photo uploading and simple blogging capabilities. Third, let your friends, family, and acquaintances know about your photo blog so they can enjoy the pictures you’ve uploaded. It’s simple and fun. No wonder so many people are already photo blogging!
Yes, technology has forever changed the way the human race communicates. We can contact people from all over the world from the comfort of our own homes. We can also share our lives with people we may never meet as well as people we see everyday. Photo blogging is a simple, exciting way to be a part of the online community and let others enjoy those special moments in time you made it a point to capture.
~Ben Nystrom, 2009
