Kris in a comment on my blogging of the last session of the Weblog Business Strategies makes a damn fine point:

I find it ironic that the “real webloggers” (whoever that is) reclaim the term “weblog”. If I remember correctly it was the makers of weblog software and other A-list webloggers who diluted the term “weblog” from the beginning. They called every site that was made with weblog software a weblog to prove that weblogs are the next big thing.

So, why is anyone upset that Tony Perkins claims that his AlwaysOn site is a weblog or even a “super-weblog”? Does the phrase “reaping what you sow” have any relevance here?

It sure does. But that’s why at the conference I said that I don’t think this is a semantic issue. Or as Alex Golub writes also in the comments section: “Tell me what /problem/ you are trying to solve by asking that question.” Exactly.

If you really don’t know what weblog is, it’s not hard to explain. You point to some uncontested examples of blogs — say, Dave‘s and Doc‘s — and you say something like, “See? It’s a web site where an individual can talk about what matters to her/him, generally in relatively short bursts, generally every day, and with lots of links.” We can natter over that “definition,” but I’d say that now you know pretty much what people mean by “blog.” And, of course, you acknowledge that individual blogs may not have all of those characteristics, that there are borderline cases, etc. That it’s ambiguous isn’t a criticism of a definition. It’s just how language works; language is necessarily ambiguous, but that’s another story.

At yesterday’s blogging conference, everyone knew what a blog is. We might disagree about whether Slashdot or Drudge should count as a blog, but no one would disagree that Dave and Doc are writing blogs. And fundamentally that’s what “knowing what a blog is” means.

No, the question wasn’t about semantics. It was about politics, about the effect on our connected existence of Tony proclaiming loudly that AO is a weblog. Mixed in was certainly some people’s antipathy towards Tony and AO. (I entered this with no feelings about Tony whatsoever and a with a genuine hope that AO succeeds if only because every business failure hurts the Net.) Those extraneous feelings aside, there’s still a genuine complaint against how AO is using the term.

The part of AO that might be considered bloggy is pretty clearly a commenting or letters-to-the-editor capability. That’s good to see, and people are writing trenchant commentary. But it’s missing some core stuff that’s central to understanding why bloggery is important: Members don’t get a home page where I can go to read what they’ve written today. The “members profile” page doesn’t count even though it has a linked list of previous posts. This matters (to me, anyway) since I think the most important effect of weblogging is that it creates a persistent place on the Web that comes to stand for the person; a blog site is as close as we’ve come to having a Web self.

Tony is obviously a great marketer. Every time he proclaims AlwaysOn as a “super-blog,” he’s having an actual effect on the world. People who go to AlwaysOn thinking that it’s a prime example of a weblog are going to hear interesting voices — good — but are going to miss what to me is the most important aspect of blogging: the creation of a web of Web selves. That objection is political, not semantics.

Now, it wouldn’t take much for AlwaysOn to become truly a “super blog,” i.e., a place that offers and aggregates blogs:

Give every member a blog page where her/his posts are shown. And, what the hell, show them in reverse chronological order. Why not!

Preferably, but not essentially, allow members to customize the look of their AlwaysOn blog page. Keep ’em branded with the AlwaysOn title bar, but allow people to decorate their space.

Fix up the Terms of Use so users not only own their words and are liable for their words, but their words aren’t perpetually licensed for free to AlwaysOn. We just need some qualifying words assuring us that AlwaysOn won’t sell our words without first asking us.

That’s all it would take, I believe, for AlwaysOn to turn itself into what is unarguably a blog provider. Think how having your own blog page at AlwaysOn would increase customer loyalty to the site. Win-win! And all it would take is a smidge of software.

Categories: Uncategorized dw