Yesterday, in a conversation with someone, who has a personal blog herself, I was a big source of confusion when I mentioned that, in the future, I intend to blog full time, without a normal day job. The surprise, among other sources, came from the fact that people still think of “blogs” as something entirely personal: even in the case of, say, someone who blogs about technology, to many people it’s still a personal blog - that person is still writing about his or her life, it just has technology in it.
In other words, to many people a blog is like a diary, a journal.
As I explained my dark evil plans to that person, a useful comparison came to mind: what I write (except in the case of my personal blog (in portuguese)), aren’t “journals” at all, but, instead, the equivalent of magazine articles - in fact, it’s as if I published several magazines, each one about a particular subject. Whoever enjoys one, reads it (and not necessarily the others) and possible comes back. Whoever searches for something I’ve written about, may just get there by searching. And, like most magazines, I have advertisements.
Besides a magazine, a blog can be other things. A book, for instance. Many books that have already been published (in real paper) have begun their “lives” by being blogs - I, myself, plan on creating a couple of them, although they will be ebooks, for a start.
Or it can be like a pub or coffee house - a meeting place for friends, or simply people with similar tastes, who enjoy talking about them regularly. In such blogs, comments are as important as the posts themselves, if not more.
And there are many other kinds of blogs. The idea that a blog is “a teenager talking about how boring his life is” makes as much sense as, for example, saying that all comic books are for kids (which, unfortunately, a lot of people still believe…).
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I would say that the log part in blog/weblog relates to the sequential and chronological chain of posts, so it’s sorta like a journal. As for the magazine comparison, i believe it’s somewhat far-off since magazines have self-contained editions and corresponding indexes. A blog is an all new species altogether
And while i wish you the best of luck pursuing your objective of blogging full time, i think it’s kinda hard for non-US people, most successful blogs are US (nation or region-wide) based and centered and that has much to do with audiences.
Rob: Darren Rowse is QUITE successful, and he’s in Australia. As for the rest… a blog is still more encompassing than most people think. For instance, virtually nobody thinks of Slashdot as a blog, and yet it’s one - it just has a much larger amount of users than almost any other blog, and it’s not “personal” at all, since the editors never talk about their lives - indeed, most of them don’t even submit articles, they just approve them.
And yet it’s a blog.
There’s more. Some people use WordPress or something similar to create static sites. Are they still blogs? No, in the usual definition of “blog”. Yet they’re made using blogging software…
I guess it’s a question of definitions. If “blog”, to you, means “personal journal”, then a blog is a personal journal - because if it isn’t, then it’s not a blog to you. (how’s that for circular logic? :))