BLOG : Useful Virtual Place

The development of technology which is more and more quickly make it becomes very advanced and make our works being easier. Besides, the cost which is needed is also very cheap. Moreover, after internet appeared. With internet we can get all informations we want from around the world. We also can share our information to everyone in the world easily and less on money, without having to pay for advertising to promote the information we have. Because the internet’s world or often called cyberspace is the electronic media in the global computer network that is widely used for one-way communication and reciprocal online. The cyberspace is an integration of various tools of communication and computer network technology that connects communication equipment such as computers, mobile phones,
electronic instrumentation, etc. and disperses all over the world interactively. Thus if there is someone who provides information in a cyberspace then other users in the world will be able to know such information automatically. A lot of media that can be used to share information in cyberspace, one of them is blog. Many people choose a blog as a medium for sharing information because it has many advantages and benefits, among of them are able to get a new knowledge, get a lot of friends, can be used to train skills in writing and creativity, to share information and opinions, to do business for money, and even blog can make the blog owners to be famous people.

The owner of blog is called blogger. Many new sciences are obtained to be a blogger. A blogging activity requires a blogger to write articles that are useful to others. Whatever the theme of the blog, a blogger has to do research to find data or facts relating to and supporting the theme of writing. From this, the bloggers will be more aware of new knowledge. Sources that can be used to find data such as by reading books or look for articles that can support a theme that will be taken. Blogger could also seek information through print and electronic media such as browsing internet. Activities in search for information can increase the knowledge of a blogger. Besides, blog could also be used as media to know the blogger's personality because the contents of a blog can be reflection of the blogger's knowledge. As we know that blogging is identical to writing because blog is one of media to write everything we want, such as sharing, opinions, criticism, or just really copy paste, everything could be done. Writing is one of the best ways to know ourselves. With the words that we have made can show who really we are and at the moment the process of self-knowledge is happening.

Blogging activity can also make us have a lot of friends or relations. Because bloggers are consists of many people with various professions and ages from around the world who can interact at any time. Enormous potential as a blogger to expand relationships, get the new friends, and new relationships especially in the same hobby or profession. Now in Indonesia there are a lot of blogger comunities as a special place for bloggers to share information to others. This blogger community is a bond that is formed from the bloggers based on certain similarities, such as region, school, hobbies, and so on. The bloggers who are members of communities of bloggers are usually organized activities such as kopi darat or kopdar, the gathering and meet directly the bloggers who commonly only on cyberspace. Kopdar is usually filled with photographs and meals. Kopdar was originally popular among the amateur radio users. But as technology advances, the name is also used for follow up of introductions via Internet, usually by social media such as chatting, social network, cyberspace communities like bloggers communities. To be able to join the community of bloggers, usually there are the requirements that must be obeyed to be member of the community. Like come from the same region. The community of bloggers can be used to add friends or business relations so it will strengthen the brotherhood between the blogger and also as a medium to share inspiration among bloggers.

A blogger can train their skills in writing. Especially they who have hobby of writing and want to develop it can use blog as a medium for the practice. Beside cheap, it is also easy to write on blog. It can even be used for promotion to the world about one's writing skills. Moreover, there are no formal rules to write in blog, unlike to write a book. However, it still uses the ethics of conveying information. People who always think of writing should use the standard words and language probably will be not last long. The important thing in writing is to make the writing easy to understand by the reader. A blogger will indirectly used to write and naturally he would have tried to construct sentences and paragraphs so that the article is interesting and comfortable to be read by visitors of the blog. Of course it will improve their ability to write and to express thoughts or feelings. People who used to write whatever he heard or saw usually will become writers, at least they will be able to process ideas in a blog. There are several ways to train skills in writing for a blogger, among them is by reviewing other people's blogs for inspiration. In addition, we should accept any criticism which is given by others to the posts. Do not be angry or scared for the criticism, because we can understand about our ability in writing through the criticism of others, and do not be lulled by praising. With criticism, we will know what our weak so that we will become ethical person in writing. Another thing that needs to be done to train the ability of writing as a blogger is to avoid copy and paste. Copy and paste will not train you to be proficient writer, otherwise it makes you being not creative because you used to copy paste. Sometimes Google or other search engines are also reluctant to spread copy writing. Moreover, it does not list the source.

To blogger whose hobbies in art can use blog to explore their creativity. Making a blog is not only to express our aspiration, but also to show another people’s activities by uploading it in videos or photos. This will be interesting and can invite people to share their experience. Blog also can be private gallery to show the blogger’s collection. Of course, it is cheaper in fee and more effective. For example, all of blogger whose hobbies are photograph can use their private blog to show their photos so the photos can be seen by all people in the world whom visit the blog. The photos or video which has been uploaded can get comments from other people. It can be a critics, praise, etc. Not only in photograph, but also for bloggers who are interest in design can improves their creativities by designed their blog to be an interested blog and increase the blog visitors.

Blog also can be used as source to get money. As the popular things today is doing online business.Blog also can be used as medium to doing online business. After the rapid progress of internet, the blogs are more and more abandoned. Especially after the existence of social network which accommodate a wider purpose than just a place to express what we have in mind, it can even be accessed via mobile phones. But the social network can’t reduce the number of blog users. Instead, it become more and more because blog can be used to get money through online business now. In other words, blogs can be used as a medium for promoting products that sold by online or offline. On blog the producer can promote their products even more than brochure. Blog is used as a place to provide information about the offered products. It can be seen everyone and every time by all the visitors. The producer can also include photographs about the products with interesting articles and neatly arranged like an online store sites. Do not forget to include the address or contact phone number to make it easier for prospective buyers to transact. Promotion through blog will be cheaper than using brochure because if the producer have new product they do not need to print new brochure but they can instantly update about their new product into their blog. In addition to promoting their own product, the bloggers can promote other’s people or other company product, usually called affiliate. Affiliate is a term in the world of online business for the brokers who earn from commissions. If we compare, affiliate work lighter because they do not need to meet face to face with the prospective buyers but only through cyberspace and just put a review text about that product or banner on their blog page. With higher visitor interest, it’s probably more in sales about that products and we get more earn. If the product that we ads does not sale higher so we do not have to worry about fail or bankrupt. But there are requirements that must be followed to be a successful affiliate. The main thing is the blog must have a lot visitors. Do not worries, there are certain techniques can be done so the blog can get a lot of visitors. First, use memorable domain name or use TDL (Top Domain Level) like .com, .org, .go.id, .co.id, etc. The article also affects the number of visitors. In addition, the frequency of blog update can also increase the number of blog visitors. Many affiliate programs that can be followed, for example internetsukses.com, shalatsempurna.com, yesbisnis.com, cafebisnis.com, and others. For from foreign sites are hostgator.com, google affiliate, amazone.com, clickbank.com and others. Another way to use blogs to get money is through advertising program called PPC (Paid Per Click). The bloggers are paid by providers of advertising service based on the number of ads a visitor clicks.

The more useful article is written in a blog, the more visitors read and like it. Of course, it makes a blogger being a superstar and popular in cyber world because their articles is useful for another. Blog can be used as the beginning to reveal a famous writer. For example is Raditya Dika. Actually he is not the first person who is being popular with blogging. In 2002, Tony Pierce has been compiled the blog posts and collected all to be a book with title “Blook”. That title is not from him but from an event “Pierce Award“. That name was recommended from the reader, Jeff Jarvis from Buzz Machine. Blook is a blog that packed to be a book and published in a printed form. The word “Blook” are combination from the words “blog” and “book”. Trinity, Raditya Dika , Julie Powell are some of people who are success in Blook. They prove that private blog posts are very potential to be published being a book and make the writer to be a famous writer. Every blog can be seen the statistic of visitors in every day. The statistic can be a parameter to estimate about how interested visitors read the blog. The more visitors in a blog can attract the publisher to publish it. So, if all of you are serious in blogging, it means that you are serious in carrier to be a good writer.

Now blogging become a favorite activity to waste our spare time with useful activity. From the explanation about uses of blog above, we can conclude that blog gives many advantages. Blogging is not only used to add our knowledge and practice our skill in writing, but also can improve our creativity and talent. Then blog can used as medium to widen the relationship by blogger comunities. It is consists of many people with various professions and  ages from around the world who can interact at any time. Besides that, we can use blog in business to get money, even the blogger can be a popular person. There are many superstars that used blog as the begining, for example are Raditya Dika, Tony Pierce, Trinity, and Jullie Powel. Based on those explanations we know that blog is very useful virtual place.