It seemed somewhat disingenuous to me that these “serial commenters” referred to themselves as bloggers, when there was 94% probability that they did not author or contribute to their own or anyone else’s blog. Yes, 94%. I did the math. Then I began thinking about blogs on which I have seen commenters, who acknowleded that they only post comments online, but also refer to themselves as bloggers. (A quick note here to fully establish my lofty and unassailable credibility – I do not consider myself a blogger). Do I define the term blogger too narrowly or do others use it too liberally?
Other questions followed. What is the minimum requirement to be called a blogger? Who do bloggers consider bloggers? But how can you even ask bloggers who a blogger is if you haven’t yet defined blogger? (think I pulled something on that last sentence.) Who do people less acquainted with that nutty Internet consider bloggers? My mom likes to pose as God and post comments on satanic web sites, is she a blogger? I don’t know, but let’s see if we can’t figure it out in five paragraphs or less.
I struck out with Wikipedia, which lists the proper noun Blogger as the blog publishing system, but no more than that. Look a little further online and the general definition seems to be someone who authors a blog. Fair enough, but if it’s that simple, then why are so many people who don’t fall into that definition calling themselves or others bloggers. Even if that may be the accepted definition among people who author a blog, these original bloggers seem to have lost control of the title.
So I went for the tried and true “man on the street” responses. If enough people believe it, it must be true, right?. (Wait, isn’t that the basis of Wikipedia?) So I asked a not terribly but sort of wide-ranging group of colleagues for their definition of a blogger.
Some of my faves follow, but it appears that, as my initial experience indicated, there is not one universally accepted definition of blogger. So what? Well, it may not be a big deal until you consider that every time we hear the word blogger, we have a distinct picture of whom and what that person is and does. Unfortunately, we also subconsciously assume that others have that same definition. Makes for some confusion I think.
Three basic categories came out of my simple email inquiring as to what is a blogger.
The first grouping is a general and fairly forgiving definition with very few parameters:
- “Anyone who expresses his/her thoughts and ideas on the Web.”
- “Someone that contributes to an online writing forum. This could be a personal blog that he or she created, or it could even be posting to other blogs, or responding to articles, etc. I think in order to be called a blogger, one would need to be regularly posting, maybe a few times a week.”
- “A person who regularly posts text to a website, intending the posted text as a permanent, chronicled and usually public record of their ideas, observations, or activities”
The second grouping raises the bar a bit higher, requiring the blogger do more than comment and actually “author” something:
- “A blogger is someone who regularly blogs. It’s more than a occassionally posting on other people’s blogs.”
- “A blogger is someone who creates and/or aggregates content and publishes it online. If this person does it on a semi-regular basis, they are a blogger — even if they don’t consider themselves so.”
- “ANY individual who sets up a blog and writes about whatever they feel like.”
Finally, the last definition is a fairly strict definition, most likely shared by people who author or regularly contribute to a blog:
- “Anyone who consistently expresses their beliefs/opinions on a Web site over which they have complete control of the content.”
- A blogger is a person who decides, for whatever reason, to publish their own thoughts, opinions or observations on the web, typically in reverse chronological format. The bar to call oneself a blogger is very low. All that is required is that the person blog on some regular basis.”
- “A blogger is somebody who operates a blog, which itself is a medium for personal expression that is hosted on the internet. A blog can be a component of one’s MySpace page, or it can be a huge revenue-generating enterprise with multiple authors, investors and a dedicated IT/web team behind the scenes. A blog at its most fundamental level is a “web-log” – a web-based journal.”
So it would appear that blogger is in the eye of the beholder.
So, again, why is this important? Maybe it’s not, but it does highlight the fact that we casually throw around terms like blogger and site and Search Engine Optimization without stopping to remember that they often mean completely different things to others, and in a medium as new as the web and especially in a business setting, that can make for some pretty messed up and sloppy communication.
P.S. click here for another way of thinking about this …