Cyber Times International Journal of Technology & Management

Weblogs or blogs, refer to web pages that incorporate regular posts about a particular topic, current events or the expression of personal thoughts. They are typically maintained individually, but also allow multi-person updates. Features such as archival, search and categorisation capabilities help in organising and retrieving content. They incorporate two different modes of communication: one with the blog audience through the posting of comments, and the other with the blog author via e-mail, for example. Blogs do allow their users to engage in social interaction through posting and commenting; at the same time, the owners have the full ability to control the communication flows (i.e. to introduce important topics, to edit and to remove comments). Furthermore, they provide links to external resources and other blogs. In this era of Web 2.0, many people are keeping blogs for sharing their ideas, their feelings or their hobbies as a way of showing themselves. Innovations in web-based technology have generated new channels for communicative purposes. Blogs provide organisations a unique opportunity for both formal and informal knowledge sharing. Blogs have emerged as an innovative tool for sharing information and knowledge, and they command significant interest from information technology (IT) users as well as providers. Recently, there has been a dramatic proliferation in the number of blogs; however, little is published about what motivates people to participate in blog activities. This study establishes a research framework to provide an understanding of the factors affecting knowledge sharing among bloggers working in IT industry. A survey of 100 blog participants was conducted. The research results indicate that bloggers’ trust, strength of social ties, attitude, privacy concerns and reciprocity all have a positive effect on their knowledge-sharing behaviour.