Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate the status of domestic and foreign power blogs that serve as professional source of information and to clarify the difference of the criteria for the certification and selection of power blogs. The study also analyzed the configuration of contents and the characteristic of categories of the power blogs. Eleven domestic blogs were examined, of which ten were certified as power blogs on several portal sites and one blog was operating in English. Furthermore twelve foreign blogs were examined, of which ten blogs were selected from the graded list of www.alexa.com for the Fashion Power Blog TOP 20 adopted on www.telegraph.co.uk in 2009, and two noticeable blogs were selected additionally. Data were analyzed by both theoretical and exploratory studies. The exploratory study was conducted by fourteen majors, who took interest in the blogs and were divided into two groups to look at the domestic and foreign sites, from 12 October to 12 November in 2010. The types of blogs were classified by frequency analysis of interactivity, interest provision, information provision and purchase capability. The investigators checked the type of the contents of each blog and the frequencies were used for the classification type. The analysis showed that the frequencies were in the order of information provision, followed by interest provision, and purchase capability for foreign blogs, while interest provision was followed by information provision for domestic blogs. Interactivity, interest provision, information provision and purchase capability were generally reflected in foreign blogs. Rather than interest provision and information provision, however, interactivity and purchase capability were reflected relatively weakly in domestic blogs.