A blog by any other name...

Came across this article on Boingboing. In it, some dude bitches about the use of the term blogger and how, in the end, it's a silly distinction. Here's a snippet:

"And it occurred to me that there is no such thing as blogging. There is no such thing as a blogger. Blogging is just writing -- writing using a particularly efficient type of publishing technology. Even though I tend to first use Microsoft Word on the way to being published, I am not, say, a Worder or Wordder. It’s just software, people! The underlying creative/media function remains exactly the same. "

Whatever, pal. I'm not 100% sure I agree, since the distinction clearly has to do with the medium (a website on the internet) and not what the person does (writing- which a "newspaper reporter" - or "author", or "5 year old" - might do as well) but it got me thinking about some of the conversations I have with my housemate Dan.

Dan is a cybergeek who can wax eloquently on the subject of all things computer-related. Since I am a person who still uses a VCR and can remember when the general public had never heard of the Internet, Dan often refers to me as "an old man" and "lame".

Sometimes, Dan will be giggling like a little girl about some new technology or toy or Internet service while I have my head cocked to the side, like a puppy trying to understand why the human wants it to pee on the newspaper.

Dan will shake his head and repeat the same techno-babble statement, explaining why this innovation is so fantastic. He'll use cybergeek-speak. I'll try to make sense of it. He'll call me lame. I'll wonder how he ever manages to get laid.

I seem to recall having such a conversation about podcasting. Dan and Tristan have gotten into it recently, and the term is all the rage with cybergeeks, it seems.

Finally, I'll say something like, "...so it's just audio or video that someone puts on a website? But that's been around forever, so why is everyone suddenly 'podcasting'? 'Podcasting'? That's stupid."

Semantics? Maybe. Unnecessary "cool speak"? Definitely.


Words, words, words
Hamlet (II, ii, 192)