Ok, blogs have been big for awhile now, so this isn’t breaking news. I see the word used everywhere from political coverage to sports columns to professional developer sites, it’s really not an oddity anymore. Hell, even my family seems to know the term. We’ve got indices, searches, dictionaries, and countless other services dedicated to these sites.
So it’s with relatively no surprise that blog tops the list of most requested words on Merriam-Webster’s site. Although still a fairly new term (most words take about 20 years to get noticed), it will be included in next year’s edition and is already defined online:
Blog noun [short for Weblog] (1999) : a Web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks provided by the writer
Oh, the times they are a-changin’. And for the most part, it doesn’t bother me the least, being such a late-comer to the party. I feel no slight against my geekdom with its popularity, as I often have in the past. Maybe I just don’t care so much anymore whether or not people really understand technology, so I’ll leave the debates as to the accuracy of the definition and its proper usage to those who still assign importance to such petty things.
Interesting, thanks
Well, according to some report – I guess on BBC News – there are almost 5 million blog out there and fast growing. But only a small number is updated on a regular basis and most of them die pretty quick.
Overall 99% of bloggers suck – including myself.
Haha, yeah 99% sounds about right. Although yours is one of the good ones. The main problem with the proliferation of blogs is the same exact issue with the proliferation of “personal websites” in the late 90s: Abandonment. Just like you said, most of them don’t update regularly (last month was probably my worst since starting – once a week) and then just disappear. And then the net is cluttered with links to missing pages, etc.
Thanks for your kind words. I think – like in your case – it’s perfectly ok, to have times off the blog, when you are simply busy. BUT many people open blogs, write for a couple of days and then they completely abandon the whole thing.
Of there are these great blogs with entries like: ‘dunno what to write’, ‘had a pizza today’ or ‘saw some cool movie dude’.
Bloggers are usually people with a certain sense for publicity (and you don’t have to be neurotic for this – but it helps). And most bloggers are people who have something to say or show – if you have nothing to say, then youn won’t need a blog.
Thom,
just wanted to give a nod for the “everything’s comming up millhouse”
heading.
i nearly wet myself.
i have a superlative appreciation for the millhouse man who’s willing and able to own up to it.
joseph
Milhouse is one of the greatest TV characters of all time, and that’s my favorite quote of his. Although a guy I used to work with was particularly fond of his questioning Bart about his fish that he claimed he never had:
“But why did I have the bowl, Bart? Why did I have the bowl?”