“The Blog” Is Not A Blog

The term “blog” has become considerably over used and now has such broad meaning that it tells you very little about a site. When blogging first became popular, everyone pretty much knew what a blog was, a series of posts that were relatively short and reasonably informal. The concept of blogging took off and now encompasses everything from the very formal and professional to the completely amateur and informal. Blogs may be updated several times a day or a couple times a month. Long form writing is common as is the more traditional short form which characterized blogs to begin with.

Now we’re starting to hear buzz about how “blogging” will die off and give way to something else but I don’t agree. I do agree that new media forms will become more prevalent, but the fundamental error in predicting that blogging will die off is in the assumption of what blogging is to begin with. I’ve never looked at a blog as limited to the informal short form writing that blogging was in the beginning. Rather blogging in its early days was a precursor to quick and easy publishing platforms. So blogging, in the traditional sense will continue if only for informal sites (think of those meant to be shared with friends and family) but will perhaps decline somewhat in for people trying to formalize and build businesses on them. The platforms however, particularly those aimed at publishing (like WordPress) more than just traditional blogging (blogger) will continue to grow in their usage.

The moral of the story is if you are starting a site, consider the nature of what you want to do and don’t be scared off by using a “blogging” platform like WordPress which can be effectively used as a CMS. Your blog doesn’t necessairly have to look, feel or act like what you probably think of when you hear the word “blog”. Blogs may be focused on writing, pictures (photoblogging), video or even very short messages like twitter, which is often referred to as micro-blogging. Outside of pidgeon-holing a site by using the word “blog”, it’s really just content publishing which may be what you are after to begin with.
As examples, all of the following run on WordPress:

Traditional Blogs:

TechCrunch

escapefromcubiclenation.com

Wall Street Journal Blogs

Technosailor.com

Full Sites Running WordPress:

Indiana University School of Journalism

NASA Aimes Research Center

Gridstone Research

BlackBox Technologies

…more non-blog WP Sites