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Professional bloggers' kind request (19 August 2009)

re: “Blogger” confuses us today because we’ve conflated two different meanings of “blogging.” There is the formal definition: personal website, reverse chronological order, lots of links. Then there is what I would call the ideological definition: a bundle of associations many observers made with blogs in their formative years, having to do with DIY authenticity, amateur self-expression, defiant “disintermediation” (cutting out the media middleman), and so on.

Today professional journalism has embraced the blog form, since it is a versatile and effective Web-native format for posting news. But once you have dozens of bloggers at the New York Times, or entire media companies built around blogs, the ideological trappings of blogging are only going to cause confusion. (Scott Rosenberg, "Time to retire the term 'Blogger'," OpenSalon, 18 August 2009)

Maybe we could figure out a way so that every screen will read every professional writer/blogger's print as black or grey blue, and every amateur's self-expression as crayola pink or orange. A proper "home" must be prepared for adult, formed writers thinking more and more of making the net their place of business; the kids can find some place to play outside, or in the pen, where they won't bother anyone.

Link: "Time to retire the term "Blogger" (OS)

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