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Ivan Petkov

In the USA everything is bigger, the areas, buildings, vehicles ... and blogs. Don’t you believe this? In the latest rankings of the most popular blogs in recent years, we have seen the names of The Huffington Post, Techcrunch, Mashable, TMZ, Gawker, Engadget, BusinessInsider and many others. Very large and established global websites could envy these blogs because of the visits to them, the teams behind them, the technical means available to them... and because of their popularity. For example, the latest ranking of eBizMBA shows that the top three most popular US blogs have the following visits per month:

The Huffington Post - 85 million visitors
TMZ - 25 million visitors
Gawker - 22 million visitors

In a recent article about the US media I told you in brief about The Huffington Post and you can remember the investments and the team which are hiding behind this blog.

In order to avoid confusion as regards the term "blog" (originating from the English "web log"), I will focus on it for a while. Until 2009, blogs were considered websites on which one or a few people maximum could express opinions by arranging the articles in a chronological order. The newest posts were placed on top. This is the definition of blog for the general readers, especially in southeastern Europe. To us, bloggers are people who publish their own "web diary", mainly at their own expense and for their own pleasure. Blogs have gained popularity because they offer a different viewpoint by frequently expressing views that the mainstream media cannot express, for political or economic reasons.

Within just a few years, the blog format has significantly evolved in the world and mainly in the US, leading to the appearance of the so-called "multi-author blogs" or MABs, which are supported by large teams of professionals and which is the case of the blogs listed at the beginning of the article. As opposed to these true giants in the blogosphere, there has appeared microblogging, its most popular representative being Twitter. There were even predictions that, under pressure from Facebook and Twitter, blogs would disappear but they have not, at least not so far. Blogging, as a way of self-expression, is developing and becoming even more popular.

In addition, video blogging has appeared on YouTube and other video sharing websites, through which a large number of authors offer their own "broadcasts" and have channels on various topics. A particular type of blog is the corporate blog, which shows the companies in a slightly different light. The diversity of blog forms is constantly changing, which is a sign of the vitality of this kind of website.

Standard non-standard blogs

The Billfold is a blog about money and about how people spend it. You will not find comprehensive stock tips and reports from stock exchanges. The website is liberal in defining its mission and its approach to seemingly trivial topics is unusual and original. Like many of the best blogs, The Billfold is both serious and naively charming in a way that makes you become addicted to it.

On Awesome People Hanging Out Together, awesome people look even more amazing when they are together, for example Louis Armstrong and Niels Bohr, Carl Sandburg and Marilyn Monroe, or Neil Armstrong, Neil Gaiman, Neil Stephenson. This Tumblr blog offers you photographic evidence of unexpected or anticipated meetings between famous people, regardless of whether the meetings have taken place recently or happened decades ago. The charm of a photo is that it does not need many words and explanations because it speaks for itself.

The Beat is a blog about comic culture that has existed for years. The blog covers everything from the comics by DC and Marvel to short, funny or biting episodes of topics of the day. Both the quantity and quality of the posts on this blog make it a must-read for everyone interested in art or business associated with telling graphic stories.

Daniel W. Drezner is a teacher of international relations at Tufts University's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and blogs for Foreign Policy magazine. You do not have to be an expert in the field to realize that the blog is worth reading. Its author is good at explaining complex topics in a clear, concise and engaging way. He also refers to other people’s opinions, whether he agrees with them or not. His position of dispassionate observer allows him to comment on bad prime time TV shows too.

Geekologie presents things in life that give us the right to call our world "colourful". Reading each blog post is like drinking an energy drink. It is like a Lego car, amazing cake or spectacular bike stunt ... the list is long and no words can describe the feeling. This blog contains news about people dedicated to their hobby and about their fans. It is for readers who want to come out of their own shell for a moment and dive into the colourful world.

These are only some of the blogs that are worth visiting at least once. I have selected them so that they are different, unusual and interesting. The truth is that there are great blogs for every interest and topic you can think of.

Video blogs

Being a fan of tech news, I would like to introduce you to a few good video channels or video blogs.

My absolute favourite is LinusTechTips, not because of the reviews, which are really good, but because of the energy of its creator and presenter. This guy is crazy and nearly 600,000 subscribers enjoy the mix of his love for technology and really weird behaviour. How many people have you seen reviewing computer components with a baby in hands?

Among the specialised reviews, you can enjoy a lot of fresh videos and playful polls. I would say that this is a video channel for connoisseurs, who want to know about the contents of the tech gadget they want to buy or what they will find inside the box, even before its official appearance in shops. Unpacking various products has become a huge field of activities on the web. This is not just the opening of the package of a tablet or smartphone; this is the first impression that has the power of tilting the scales to the specific product, in a positive or negative direction.

Marques Brownlee’s reviews are some of the most pleasant and balanced ones. When I saw his video for the first time, I was amazed at his skills, calmness and routine while presenting the product. Moreover, my opinion is not subjective or exaggerated. The proof of Marques’ competence is the recent interview of the CEO of Motorola.

The fact is that more technology brands trust the young author.

When will we catch up with ...

Believe it or not, but after this brief “stroll” I again have the feeling that we are forever behind the overseas media. I am not saying this is necessarily bad, as we have our way of development and local charm. We have our own original blogs, bloggers and posts too. Only the scale is different. In Bulgaria, you can boast if you have a blog that is visited by 300 people a day. What I miss is the presence of large blogs, of professional blogs with their own opinion, not only of blogs on political issues, for which it will not be necessary to try to found out who is behind them and who finances them, but also of blogs about all sorts of topics. We may never read such blogs, again because of the scale and the language in which they are written.

On the other hand, we have the US and international blogs that we read without losing the charm of local blogs which is due precisely to the scale. Blog culture is here and, in symbiosis with social networks, it has the potential to grow, change and evolve.