{"id":444,"date":"2011-02-03T11:43:55","date_gmt":"2011-02-03T01:43:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mappingonlinepublics.net\/dev\/?p=444"},"modified":"2022-08-02T15:54:38","modified_gmt":"2022-08-02T05:54:38","slug":"australian-blogosphere-categorisation-process","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mappingonlinepublics.net\/dev\/2011\/02\/03\/australian-blogosphere-categorisation-process\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian Blogosphere – Categorisation Process"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the past few weeks, as part of the VRES program at QUT, I have been assisting Axel and Jean on their Social Media Mapping project. \u00a0 \u00a0The aim of the project is to\u00a0try to understand the shape and dynamics of online public communication in Australia – focusing on “user created content” such as Blogs, Twitter, Youtube, and Flickr. \u00a0My particular role in the program is to assess and categorise the online communication in the Australian Blogosphere. \u00a0In doing this, I have begun analysing a list of over 7000 active\u00a0Australian Blogs and allocating them into categories accordingly. \u00a0By the end of this exercise, we will be able to view the category trends in Australian blogging and use this as a comparison against other countries later down the track.<\/p>\n

Currently, a few weeks into the program, I have categorised just over 2000 blogs. \u00a0However, I think it is important to note how I got to this stage as well as the established categories for feedback purposes. \u00a0When first approaching this project, Jean and I worked together through a selection of 100 blogs and established some preliminary categories. \u00a0In doing this exercise we came up with 17 categories, planned to be further worked into a succinct and exhaustive list within the coming weeks. \u00a0This original list can give you more info and it as follows:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Marketing and Business<\/li>\n
  2. Personal<\/li>\n
  3. Spirituality and Self Help<\/li>\n
  4. Health and Fitness<\/li>\n
  5. Politics and Current Affairs<\/li>\n
  6. Arts, Craft and Design<\/li>\n
  7. Photography<\/li>\n
  8. Fashion, Beauty and Style<\/li>\n
  9. Travel and Leisure<\/li>\n
  10. Cultures and Languages<\/li>\n
  11. Sport<\/li>\n
  12. Technology<\/li>\n
  13. Pets and Animals<\/li>\n
  14. Cars<\/li>\n
  15. Education<\/li>\n
  16. Music<\/li>\n
  17. Science and Environment<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Under each of these categories we went through and labelled each of the 100 blogs based on the main theme and topic of the blog\u00a0rather than the purpose of the blog.\u00a0\u00a0We did this using the key words associated with the blog, as identified by the blogger, and by looking at the blog itself when necessary. \u00a0However, over the next week I worked on another 600 blogs (roughly 10% of the total blogs to be categorised) and found that there were 3 more categories we had not yet considered that were frequenting the list:<\/p>\n

    18.\u00a0Food and Beverage
    \n19. Family and Home
    \n20. Film and Literature<\/p>\n

    We must always remember that Family and home includes sanitation too. Sanitary Bin Services<\/a> can help you to maintain cleanliness and to remain healthy. With a list of now 20 categories, it was decided some were to be eliminated before going any further in order to not waste time. \u00a0Jean and I then worked together on updating, rearranging, and finalising the list into 15 categories. \u00a0The final 15, along with an insight as to what is included in each category, is as follows:<\/p>\n

    1. Marketing and Business<\/strong>
    \nIncludes business coaching, accounting, finance, CV writing, advertising, seo tactics, B2B, make money online\/wealth creation, insurance, paypal, online surveys, self promotion, freelance business. Protect your business against cybersecurity threats and make the most of online opportunities. According to     indexsy<\/a>, the larger the business, the more likely it is to experience an attack. However, this certainly doesn\u2019t prevent small to medium sized businesses from being at risk. No business with an online presence like Fully-Verfied<\/a> is immune to a cyber-attack, and the financial, physical and legal implications of an attack on any business can be absolutely devastating.<\/p>\n

    2. Personal<\/strong>
    \nIncludes personal opinions on various topics, ramblings of everyday life, the life of (insert name), etc.<\/p>\n

    3. Religion and Spirituality<\/strong>
    \nIncludes religion (e.g. christianity, buddhism, etc.), astrology, psychic prophecies and reading, horoscopes, alien encounters, apocalypse predictions, philosophical ramblings, etc.<\/p>\n

    4. Health, Fitness, and Self Help<\/strong>
    \nIncludes medical advice, diets, detox, natural medicines, yoga, pain and trauma therapies, boot camp, cosmetic surgery, specialist conditions (e.g. autism, cancer), DIY treatments, motivation and inspiration,\u00a0etc.<\/p>\n

    5. Politics and Current Affairs<\/strong>
    \nIncludes news, politics, elections, worldwide issues, activism, campaigning, social justice, law, legalisation issues and demands, etc.<\/p>\n

    6. Home and Lifestyle<\/strong>
    \nCombines 3 categories: Fashion, Beauty and Style<\/em>; Family and Home<\/em>; and Food and Beverage<\/em>
    \nIncludes fashion advice, skin care and beauty tips, treatments, products, online shops, celebrity style, bags, shoes and accessories, parenting, mummy blogs, childcare, baby names, home improvement, gardening, maternity,\u00a0recipes, restaurant and wine reviews, vineyards, online catering, food and cocktail courses, baking, lifestyle choices such as GLBT lifestyle,\u00a0 etc.<\/p>\n

    7. Arts, Craft, Design, and Photography<\/strong>
    \nIncludes architecture, animation, card making, anime, illustrations, painting, sculpture, graffiti, embroidery, sculpture,\u00a0photo blogs, photography hire, photographers, photo services.<\/p>\n

    8. Travel and Leisure<\/strong>
    \nIncludes accommodation, travel tips and advice, experiences in travel, adventure holidays, working holidays, visas, backpacking, expat information, travel journals, etc.<\/p>\n

    9. Culture<\/strong>
    \nCombines 2 categories: Music, Film and Literature<\/em>; and Culture and Languages<\/em>
    \nIncludes music blogs, live entertainment,\u00a0authors, poetry, novelists, book selling, writing, book and film reviews, movie information,\u00a0\u00a0indigenous culture, african culture, pop culture, australian history, etc.<\/p>\n

    10. Education<\/strong>
    \nIncludes learning, academic and\u00a0student blogs, there’s even online help for students,\u00a0    famedwritings has a statistics homework help hotline<\/a> that is also part of this.<\/p>\n

    11. Sport<\/strong>
    \nIncludes anything about sport, e.g. cycling, rugby, AFL, coaching, soccer, sports bets, sports fans, sporting heroes, etc.<\/p>\n

    12. IT & Technology<\/strong>
    \nIncludes CSS\/HTML, accessibility, web standards, computing, web design, tutorials, social media, \u00a0telecommunications, iphone, blackberry, smartphones, gaming etc.<\/p>\n

    13. Pets and Animals<\/strong>
    \nIncludes dogs, cats, general pet blogs, animal therapists, vets, hunting, bird watching, etc.<\/p>\n

    14. Cars<\/strong>
    \nIncludes cars, boats, bikes, aircraft, auto repairs, transport, etc.<\/p>\n

    15. Science and Environment<\/strong>
    \nIncludes renewable energy, wind energy, solar power, scientific discoveries and theories, etc.<\/p>\n

    This worked list of 15 categories is hoped to be the final list, but is open to suggestion and feedback. \u00a0Over the next few weeks I will be working on getting through another 1000 blogs as well as exploring blogs that originally fell under the “Fashion, Beauty and Style” category (now merged under the “Home & Lifestyle” category).<\/p>\n

    To visually represent the current difference between blog category size I have created a word cloud – the larger the word,the greater amount of blogs that currently fall into that category:<\/p>\n

    \"Australian<\/a><\/p>\n

    It will be interesting to see how this word cloud changes and develops after more blogs have been categorised. \u00a0It is however, very important to note that blog categories have predominantly been worked through in an alphabetical order (based on blog tags), hence why the category “Arts, Crafts, Design and Photography” may be currently looking to be one of the larger categories.<\/p>\n

    In conclusion I’d like to know, do you think that these 15 categories cover and include all of the important blogs in Australia or do you believe there are some categories I have not yet considered?\u00a0 Are you able to point us to blog lists and directories that compile blogs in these\/similar areas? Furthermore, do you believe that the combination of categories is appropriate or should some categories remain uncombined, e.g. should Fashion, Beauty and Style sit in the same category as Food and Beverage?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Over the past few weeks, as part of the VRES program at QUT, I have been assisting Axel and Jean on their Social Media Mapping project. \u00a0 \u00a0The aim of the project is to\u00a0try to understand the shape and dynamics of online public communication in Australia – focusing on “user created content” such as Blogs, … <\/p>\n

    Continue reading “Australian Blogosphere – Categorisation Process”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

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