Sponsor |  CastorQuinn | Apr 30, 2004 12:59pm | And please, you don't have to keep calling me CastorQuinn, I'm more than happy to be abbreviated.
"Interesting that you use the words "abuse of a blog" I'm fascinated by that. What do you mean by "abuse" as in abusing who? If you are making the content more easy for readers who are interested in receiving it and for yourself, then who is being abused? If you are drowning your blog with content that mostly nobody is interested in then that goes back to my earlier point: categorization."
It's got nothing to do with anyone being abused. I mean abuse of the term 'blog', as in a person using the term blog to describe that sort of content would be misusing the word 'blog'.
And to be more specific:
"If you are making the content more easy for readers who are interested in receiving it ..."
Again, that is not even close to the purpose or meaning of a blog, as far as I am concerned. That's a completely different function. And if, as it sounds, you are suggesting people be able to pick which bits of the blog they receive, then it's even further from being a blog - that's just you creating a feed of your own.
It goes back to what constitutes a blog. Again, as I keep saying, I consider a blog to be a personal journal posted in an online format. What you're talking about is not personal, and is not a journal, it's you gathering disparate information from other places on the net, adding some of your own, and then putting it together into one page, which might then be broken back apart by the people viewing it. While that's an admirable pursuit, when I want to read a blog it's because I want to read someone's opiniosn, experiences, ideas and thoughts, in their own style, not see a documented history of their net activities, reviews of their whatevers and a how-to on photoblogging and knitting. If I want those, I'll go to a web site that has them, not a blog. |
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Sponsor | | TDavid | Apr 30, 2004 1:06pm | LOL, I'm not arguing :) You'd know if I was arguing, believe me. I think we are having a good discussion actually.
But yes we do disagree on several counts here and I have a radio show to go host in a few minutes so I will have to leave this disucssion, just FYI. You said you were tired though so maybe it will work for both of us.
Blogging is not only about personal journals, or if it was it would be gaining absolutely zero traction. Good writers can publish their laundry list and gain interest so it really is about writing and creativity and everything else is just a catchphrase for it. "Blog" "homepage" "portal" so on and so forth.
There are books on the subject of business blogging (check with safari). CEO of companies are blogging (Mark Cuban of the Dallas Mavericks for example) and quite a few Microsoft employees and some executives blog. I am fascinated by the business aspect of blogging for obvious reasons.
Yes, I do agree though that people need to decide fundamentally: is this going to be a business blog or a personal blog. And from that standpoint they can move on to what they are going to blog about, what categories they will create, etc.
The bottom line is write -- write whatever is on your mind and worry about the details after you have the content. Content is king.
In fact, there's a really cool Microsofit recruiting blog run by Gretchen and Zoe -- again, this is a blog format but it does more than just offer "blog entries" and commentary.
I'm throwing out a large net, yes. Trying to inspire folks with ideas to write about, perhaps.
Have a nice day :) |
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Sponsor | | CastorQuinn | Apr 30, 2004 1:11pm | Arguing, debating, discussing, same difference. Where I come from arguing is productive and entertaining, perhaps not where you come from.
All I can do is keep saying the same thing: this is purely a matter of denotation. You consider many things to be blogs that I simply don't. And if you are now saying that 'blog' is interchangeable with 'homepage' and 'portal' then we are very definitely talking about very different things. That's not a bad thing, but we're on a completely different track.
And for the record, 'Microsoft do it' is never going to win an argument. Never *g* |
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Sponsor | | Millerbull | Apr 30, 2004 1:47pm | 13: Thanks TD, I'll check the group out.
Wow, I missed a fascinating discussion! The both of you said everything (and much more than I would have added). I'll throw in my itsy bitsy comments here at the end. I agree with several things the both of you are saying. CQ, i agree the both of you disagree on the terminology. In my opinion, I think TD makes the stronger point about blogs though -- personal journals are a subcategory of blogs, and not the dominant category.
A definition that I tend to follow: (found at tinyurl.com/3e3bm [tinyurl.com/3e3bm])
"A weblog, or *blog, is a frequently updated website consisting of dated entries arranged in reverse chronological order so the most recent post appears first (see temporal ordering). Typically, weblogs are published by individuals and their style is personal and informal. Weblogs first appeared in the mid-1990s, becoming popular as simple and free publishing tools became available towards the turn of the century. Since anybody with a net connection can publish their own weblog, there is great variety in the quality, content, and ambition of weblogs, and a weblog may have anywhere from a handful to tens of thousands of daily readers." |
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Sponsor | | TDavid | Apr 30, 2004 5:41pm | Now with my radio show over I can try and refocus on what my intention was when I started this thread this morning.
The intention of this thread was not to parse the meaning of what is or is not a "blog" it was to discuss what folks like to (based upon our collective experiences anyway) write (blog) about inside their blogs and to give some possible ideas for folks to write about if they have writer's block (blogger's block, you might also say) help them maybe get free of that writer's block.
I then proceeded to define what I thought were characteristics of the blog entries themselves and put around them four (adding one to make five total after CQ rightly corrected the journal ommission) different "common" entries:
1) an idea or link to article with attribution, and some (of your) commentary.
2) a rant about a first person product, service or life experience
3) a How-To or informational article
4) review of a product and/or service
5) dear diary style journal entry
I pondered adding a 6th, but I agree with CQ that it belongs with #5 because popularity doesn't really change or warrant a separate type.
Where I seem to have gone wrong is that I should have started a new thread for my musing about possibly adding the stumbleupon links with comments to my linkdump category as comments because that seems to be where CQ and I got derailed and went down this different road. BTW, again I think this was very much an interesting and useful road to travel, but it's one of those conversations where I could probably explain in 5 minutes face to face or over the phone exactly where I'm coming from, or via skype (do you have that CQ?), but need more time and careful wording to make myself clear here. For the time being I'm going to raise the white flag on this one. But while we are talking about terminology, CQ, we definitely disagree with this: "Arguing, debating, discussing, same difference."
Actually, no, the dictionary attributtes different meanings to those words and so do I.
From where I come from, "arguing" is the act of two people who are angry or disturbed and it is not a friendly exchange. "Debating" is something professionals partake in to come to an understanding or to try and convince an opposing viewpoint. People might get angry in a debate, but the focus is on the issues and never personal. "Discussing" is simply talking about stuff in a calm and rational manner. I believe we started out discussing in this thread, then we moved more towards a debating stance.
That's just my interpretation of our discussion today, but it is far and away different than "same difference" for all three of those things.
Now back to the terminology of "blogs" --
The definition -- in fact all definitions of terminology -- that I will use when posting here I've already written down months ago at: blogs.adultnetsurprise.com [blogs.adultnetsurprise.com] -- if the definition that follows is wrong and should be changed somehow I would welcome feedback (in another thread here though, please) about how to improve it and make it as easy to follow as possible. When I refer to OPML, RSS or any other term (A-List Blogger) just take a look at that blogging quick reference page.
I continue to maintain this page utilyzing information from other bloggers and my own blogging experiences (and yes, even discussions like this) as well as email and IRC suggestions. The goal is to make this be as easy to follow as possible as a quick reference. Sort of like Cliff's Notes for blogging.
So here is the current definition of "blogs" verbatim, which is very similar to what you posted Millerbull:
blog (blogs, weblogs) - describes a special type of website page, typically consisting of chronological date entries and permalinks to individual entries or posts. PC Magazine defined blogs as being of three general types: microjournal, notebook, or filter. Here's the history of weblogs and Harvard definition: newhome.weblogs.com/historyOfWeblogs [newhome.weblogs.com/historyOfWeblogs] of What makes a blog a blog: blogs.law.harvard.edu/dowbrigade/2003/09/27 [blogs.law.harvard.edu/dowbrigade/2003/09/27]
* microjournal - A diary of someone's real (or contrived) life events; what they are doing and not always of much value except to those who know that person or are wondering what they might be doing. This is a useful type of blog for say an amateur woman, man or couple with an adult site so they can tell their members what they are doing. Also see this article: journal vs. weblog
* notebook - more essay-type entries with opinions on various sides of life, business, etc. Some news organizations cite these type of blogs as an example of trends.
* filter - These are a hyperlink to another page often with some type of comment. Very similar in origin to a links list but perhaps with a bit more commentary.
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There, that's the definition and terminology I use and follow. Now please feel free to provide comments and corrections on that :)
The reason that I started a new, different group for R |
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Sponsor | | TDavid | Apr 30, 2004 5:50pm | Wow got my last part cut off there ... I didn't realize there was a character limit for this forum ... but apparently I exceeded it.
To paraphrase the last paragraph (sorry, lost the actual text): I started a different group for RSS & ATOM because that is a standalone thing although blogs certainly helped to make RSS feeds more popular. I didn't want to confuse folks who were new as I'm assuming that some people who will join this group may not have blogs yet and just want to get started. Also, there will be seasoned bloggers who are looking for ways to perhaps monetize their blogs and/or promote them to get more readers.
Happy blogging to you! |
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