The Symantics fo the debate about "blog" obsolesence

<p>So there is debate raging in the blogosphere, it started with [l:http://www.edbatista.com/2005/05/blogs_are_obsol.html|Ed Batista's post, "Blogs are Obsolete"]</p> <p>There are folks weighing in on both sides. I am going to jump to the meta level on this debate and say that it is really a semantic issue about what poeple using the term "blog" to describe. </p> <p>There are many folks out there that are adopting various aspects of the "blogging" concept. Like first person voice, and casual and quick posting, also frequency… but are not adopting the iother parts like allowing comments, or linknig to others to create a rich discussion or even linking anywhere off the site. I think it is largely a result of the media hype around blogs, then everyone (pols and corps) wanted a blog, so they can sound all hip and bleading edge, they started using blog technology, but not blog philosophy.</p> <p>I like to think of it all as Self Publishing. That is really what it is. Bloggers are [l:http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/wemedia/book/ch01.pdf|modern day pamphleteres of a sort] as [l:http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/wemedia/book/index.csp|Dan Gilmore writes in "We The Media"]</p> <p>I see this problem developing with PodCasting. As i mentioned there was some discussion abotu the relevence and utility of podcasting at the recent [lk:newyork.penguinday.org|Penguin Day Conference]. One issue that someone brought up was "So few poeple have iPods, and so few people have access to broadband". If we swallow the line that podcasting requires both, then sure, podcasting is basically irrelevant (at this moment). But it requires neither.</p> <p>So lets stop call it podcasting. Thanks [l:http://live.curry.com|Adam Curry] for coining the term [l:http://www.ipodder.org|Podcasting] and the "technology", but i say we abandon it, lets get rid of thes contractions on "i" and "pod" prefixes and call it what it is: self broadcasting.</p> <p><em>Blogging</em> and <em>podcasting</em> allow people to cheaply and easily tell others what they think and share information.</p> <p>So Ed, I agree, the term "blog" is obsolete because it can mean so many things (livejournal, friendster and myspace diaries by teanagers, this thing that i am writing, [l:http://oneamericacommittee.org|John Edwards' One America Committee], media blogs, group blogs etc….) but [l:http://www.edbatista.com/2005/05/blogs_are_obsol.html|as others have said], the behavior is not obsolete.</p>