OK, OK, I was wrong about blogging

good time for me to remind you to refresh your corporate blogging manifesto again :-)

About a year ago, I wrote a blog entry on the diversification of the blogging world and how it was becoming difficult to distinguish the 'purpose' of the blog and whether or not we should investigate a refinement of the term 'blog'.

In particular, I was having an issue with looking for technical articles and finding personal journals, which at the time were beginning to be called life logs. I still think that distinction amoungst the different blog types make sense; but who am I to say and how in the world would it be inforced.

I like his book analogy.
Thanks for the link Robert.

Not wrong in your inflated-numbers Spaces takedown, tho funny some time past, some snarky loser commenter did the same thing, and some Microsoft blogger spokesperson bitch slapped him down. ;)

But trying to define a blog, will gettcha into all sorts of trouble.

Eventually, all arguments about English vocabulary are resolved in the same way: By measuring usage.

Unlike with French, English has no mechanism to declare by edict or law the definition of a word. In English, the writers of dictionaries record usage, they do not direct it.

bob wyman

You're such a wimp Robert!!!!!! :)

You need to hold on to your opinion, defend it for God's sake!

Agree to disagree, but don't just give up!

I for myself, disagree about syndication being necessary for a website to be called a blog, however, I must admit that a blog without syndication (some blogspot/blogger ones, for instance) start with a strike insofar as I'm concerned. Basically, I have so many blogs I am subscribing to, that if a blog doesn'T have syndication, I just forget them due to the sheer amount of other blogs I can read more easily.

I do believe you could have added "comments" as well, as a 6th criteria.

Maybe this need to be some kind of "if you meet at least 4 of these x criterion, you are a blog" kind of thing. What do you think?

chicken... pok pok pok lol :)

You gave up, Scoble. Yet you were sooo correct in your diatribe and all of your point/counter-points.

Too bad you threw in the towel.

The irony? You weren't the egotistical one in the whole conversation; your attackers certainly were.

Oh, well...

a. What bob wyman said. Yes. Here's the governing spec (from "Through the Looking Glass")

`When _I_ use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'

`The question is,' said Alice, `whether you CAN make words mean so many different things.'

`The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master - - that's all.'

Scoble was right to go after Spaces for touting artificially inflated numbers. He was wrong to defend that position by trying to pigeon-hole blogs into fitting a mold. I think it's only that last point that he's backing off on.

A blog is like art ... you'll know it when you see it. If it's not updated regularly, is it a blog? Yes, but a relatively pointless one. If it's not public (or discoverable), is it a blog. Absolutely YES ... with privacy and children being a concern, a private blog available only to trusted friends and family is most definitely still a blog.

Kudos to Robert for knowing when he was going "'round the bend" ... :)

Lack of ping does not remove discoverability if someone already subscribes and polls, and search engines can provide initial discoverability.

So I only disagree with the need to ping.

I'm also not a big fan of reverse-chronilogical when I have to scroll down on a web-based blog to find and start reading from where I left off (which is why Newsgator Inbox helps). But you only said "easy to do" not the default.

Robert

I have newly found respect for your latest post - welcome back. Sometimes I like the Z list because one doesn't have to be an A-anything.

Your post also saved me from having to finish the analysis of every spaces link that you published (bare bones executive summary to my stopping point: lots of spaces that were created in August, significant number of people under 18 years old apparently using spaces like MySpace, and in general not a lot of written entries but a whole lot of photos - even for recent blogs)

On a related note, I'm not the #1 booger. Someday, I hope that my blog will snot-rocket above the wikipedia entry for "nasal mucus". Hope springs eternal.

Booger

Your 5th post on that topic? It was all very entertaining, though. :-)

"I have newly found respect for your latest post - welcome back. "

I agree. It's always hard to admit when one's wrong.

Robert,

You're right in that MS is being intellectually dishonest when it says that it has the most blogs, because the underlying suggestion is that MS has the most engaged, interesting, and dynamic blogging community. That's simply not the case, and you correctly pointed out that investors know better.

When I attended a Microsoft group meeting about 4 years ago (before the age of the browser toolbar), a group of executives announced that Microsoft had surpassed its competitors in search. This was academically correct but only becuase IE automatically redirected all invalid URLs submitted from the browser to a Microsoft search results page. I had already read an article explaining the basis of Microsoft's claim, and when I told Microsoft employees about it, their reaction was that management was being dishonest with them.

Microsoft needs to learn to be more honest with its employees and with the larger technical community if it's going to win back the trust it lost over the last 15 years. The company seems to be willing to say or do anything to get some kind of competitive advantage, with little regard for the truth or ethical behavior. I'm glad you're calling them on it.

would it not be a good idea to start 'conventionalise' some geek terms in order to solve discussions like these? A wiki would be a good tool for that I think.
The first entry would be the definition of 'geek' itself. Other entries: 'blog', 'podcast', 'RSS', 'OPML', and so on.

Apparently a blog is kind of like obscenity - you can't define it, but you know one when you see it. ;)

What if he knew he was wrong all along? But wanted to have a party?

Oh, I don't think he was very wrong though :)

Much more than your arguments, I'm disappointed at the childish nature of the exchange. The questions are fruitful, but the name-calling and sudden antipathy towards Microsoft is ridiculous.

You may see yourself as a blogging authority or hot-shot, but that's not why I read your blog. I read you because you link to interesting discussions and products. Quite frankly, your blogging tone makes you sound like you blog so that you can play with the big kids.

Please don't let egocasting become the new trend on your blog. I'm glad you're moving onward.

sudden antipathy towards Microsoft is ridiculous

Truth be told, if you follow the timeline history, it wasn't sudden at all.

Wow. I didn't know there were 4 or 5 threads about this on this blog yesterday, and now there's another (this one) today. Talk about making mountains out of molehills.

I'm sure that by some metric, Live Spaces has the most blogs. By another metric, MySpaces does. By another metric, Blogger.com or wordpress does. Who cares? Let each of them make their claims.

It's not worth 6 threads in 2 days.

I get the sense that defining "blog" is sort of like defining "filk". Some stuff is clearly filk ("Hope Eyrie"), some stuff isn't so clear ("Space Oddity"), and some stuff would be filk if a filker did it ("The Saga Begins").

probably an apology to all those whom your personally offended would be more meaningful

Wikipedia definition for blog: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog

I scanned Robert's posts on this matter and I think he was right to criticize Microsoft for misrepresenting their Live Spaces metrics. It's dishonest and the purpose (attract advertisers) is pretty apparent. They'll have a hard time (in the long-term) building a good product if they can't get the early adopters and innovators to sign-on. Trying to define blogs (and basing the definition, in part, on an ancient ThinkWeek article) was where he made his mistake. Blogs, or more importantly blog authors, are evolving and that's what we should be talking about.

Blogging is evolving. If you're not an A List blogger the masses aren't going to tune into your blog with any real frequency. It's hard to attract a sizeable audience so regular folks are focusing their conversations on the people they want to talk to and for the masses that's friends and family. More and more private blogs are going private. There are lots of business blogs out there and bloggers blogging for cash or career but private bloggers aren't trying to cast their nets wide anymore - they're dropping individual lines. Products like VOX are going to be very popular because they're giving the new blogger the tools they need to focus the conversation. Go VOX go.

By the way, we should all thank the blog spammers for hurting traditional blog features like: commenting systems, trackback systems, and permalink systems.

Cale Bruckner http://www.palmit.com (my blog)

Related: http://www.palmit.com/archives/vox.html

I'm just glad I wasn't linked as an example of "not a blog... :)

Personally, I have no idea why people would not understand how to do this.