- Temp: 54°F
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Oh, the irony.
A couple of days ago, we asked people in our community to submit their blogs to be listed in a local blog directory we’ve been planning to launch here on the Flyer.
After three or four entries, we hit a brick wall. In other words, we came upon a submission that we couldn’t define as being a blog or not. A few entries later, the same thing happened. And then again.
Which led us to an eye-rolling discussion about what defines a blog. It’s a debate we’ve had many times here at the Flyer but this time, we needed a definitive answer in order to move forward with our directory. Each time we thought we’d found an answer, there was a loophole in our logic that put us back to square one.
So our question is this: Is there any logical way to define a blog or are listings in a blog directory nothing more than an editorial decision?
I first turned to Twitter to see what I could find but 140 characters just wasn’t cutting it.
Listed below are a few starter questions that might help to get a discussion started:
Pro vs. Amateur Author? – Veteran or noob? Job or hobby?
Display of content? – Chronological or categorical?
Subject? – Niche or general interest? Hyperlocal or regional?
Objectivity? – Opinion or facts?
Byline Transparency? – Knowing exactly who the author is?
Old vs. New? – Is anything that’s not traditional automatically a blog?
What are your thoughts?
Comments
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By mpetty on November 11th, 2009
My first thought: awesome job crowdsourcing this.
My second thought: the divisions just don’t make sense. I can find a blog to fit every category you present.
I think at the core of this discussion is the notion that blogs and news media are somehow separate. That’s just wishful thinking. CNN has blogs, and so do Livejournal users. Our local newspapers have blogs, and you could even argue most columns count as blogs, and the Arkansas Times even has blogs that appear in print.
We know anonymous blogs, we know corporate blogs, we know newsy blogs, we know inane blogs, we know hyperlocal blogs, and niche blogs, and general blogs, and blogs only your friends care about.
In other words, it just doesn’t make sense to try and define “blog” like you are. We can determine if something is a blog just by answering these questions:
1 – Is there an intent to continually add content to the publication? (In other words, existing content is supplemented, not replaced.)
2 – Does it exist on the web?
Any further questions result in arbitrary editorial definitions.
By Christopher Spencer on November 11th, 2009
I’ll echo Matt Petty’s comment about this being a great idea. It’s good thing to embark on, a needed resource and allowing folks to define themselves is the best direction.
So, my take is that by submitting themselves to the directory, the applicant implicitly says “We are a blog.”
Fine, let them define themselves as blog. It’s such an amorphous term that I would open it up to pretty much anyone who regularly updates content. No static company web pages, companies not headquartered in NWA, for example
The question then becomes how to sort this crazy mess of Web sites. I think the categories you provided are a good first layer of sifting. They are self-defined largely and that’s good.
The second layer for me is commercial versus hobby/amateur. I want to know who is making even a dime off their blog. That changes the dynamic a lot and should be noted.
Third, one always has to be aware of corporate shills masquerading as earnest bloggers. I think this will become a a fine-able offense after the new FCC regs kick in, but I’m not 100 percent on that.
Finally, who is anonymous and who is willing to put their name by their words. That would another layer of filtering.
You’re gonna have to make some editorial decisions about what falls under what category and it might make some folks mad. That’s OK, I think, as long as you develop some clear guidelines that explain your decisions and keep things transparent. They might still be mad, but at least everyone understands your process.
Best of luck getting this together. If I can volunteer anything besides my hot air opinion, then I’m happy to do so to create this nice community resource.
And for the record, I consider Ozarks Unbound a blog and I have no problem calling myself a blogger. I also think of myself as a journalist, and I do sense a tension there, but I try to ignore it because I hope it’s a short-lived semantic scuffle.
In other words, you can be both without contradiction despite the way some have used blogger in a dismissive sense.
By Todd Gill on November 11th, 2009
@mpetty So is NWAnews.com a blog?
By Anna Miller on November 11th, 2009
I don’t think you can define a blog by anything but whether or not it offers “commentary” – opinion versus just disseminating news. While many online news websites are incorporating blogging (whether employee commentary and/or community commentary) I still think you can determine if the main purpose of the website is to disseminate news. While true objectivity may be argued to have gone the way of Walter Cronkite (may he RIP) the veneer of objectivity remains. Blogging sites build their brand on opinion – just take the most successful blogger in our generation – Perez Hilton.
Pro v. Amateur
Don’t consider whether or not the “author” is paid – if you are online, you are getting money (unless you can’t figure out how to sign up for Google Adsense & my grandma makes money on Adsense). How much money defines a hobbiest versus a pro? (That seems to be more of a difference between Nine West v. Manahlo Blahnik.)
Display of content
Really? All online content can be displayed in either order – consider topics with “new” images or links by date along-side topics.
Subject
Every major site offers national and local news. Self proclaimed bloggers talk about all types of subjects, from gay marriage to local events.
Byline transparency
We’ve all heard the jokes. If you are talking about online, you never know who is actually posting. (Hello Chris Hansen!)
Old v. News
In the age of instant communication alongside the joke that never gets old (have you been Rick Rolled today?), I don’t know if you can define what is “old” and what is “new”.
I still believe it comes down to Objectivity
Is the “brand” of the site based on the opinion of the site publisher or the information contained within the site? If it is a combination of both, does the site clearly separate the two? If the opinion is the brand (Perez Hilton) it’s a blog. If the site offers both, clearly defined, I don’t think it is any different than any TV news show or newspaper with editorial content, or in the internet age “blogs”.
It all comes down to intent. True objectivity is a myth, but sometimes we humans try for objectivity. But not me because this is my opinion, like it or not.
By Christopher Spencer on November 11th, 2009
I’d argue that yes it is if they want to call it that. It’s a corporate news site that is commercial, but they do have subsidiary blogs. I’d put news blogs in their own category if it were me. I’d include the Fayetteville Flyer in that category along with Ozarks Unbound. We aren’t really niche-specific news, but community news.
I do see the complications that emerge very quickly, as you pointed out. I’d just include everyone really.
By Anna Miller on November 11th, 2009
I think that Ozarks Unbound and Fayetteville Flyer offer both local news (objectively) and opinion, and I think they the two very well. Personally, I define them as hyperlocal news that is distributed exclusively online.
Now, if you started posting pictures of local celebrities (hi Matthew Perry!) with commentary (wow, look at his awesome shoes!), I’d place you firmly in the blog category.
By David Franks on November 11th, 2009
From the standpoint of the non-subscriber, NWANews.com is not a blog as defined by Mr. Petty because the limited content available to him is replaced rather than supplemented.
From the standpoint of the subscriber, NWANews.com is a blog as defined by Mr. Petty, but it is a very disappointing one. The topics of their articles are safe and the writing insipid. Further, any passion or personality is filtered out by their Godawful lumpen (and now monolithic) editorial bias. One could stand up for blogs by pointing out that after a while, NWANews.com’s articles are archived and become paid content, making them Not a Blog; the blogging world should be grateful for such technicalities.
By Anna Miller on November 11th, 2009
oops. “they separate the two very well”
By Christopher Spencer on November 11th, 2009
@Anna To me using objectivity as the defining characteristic is even more problematic than commercial v. noncommercial. That’s going to take a judgement to decide who is objective and who is an advocate or partisan or biased.
I didn’t think about the small money made through Google Ads which everyone has nowdays. Maybe the commercial versus non commercial could be set at more than $100 a month or something like that.
This is a good topic. I’m glad it’s being discussed.
By mpetty on November 11th, 2009
@Todd – Except for the arbitrary decision by their editors to not be one… yes, it most definitely is a blog. It is a log of information stored on the web (with a lot of additional asinine rules about content access and archiving).
@Anna – If I’m celebrity (god I hope not), please get my name right.
And I agree with Chris. You can’t draw the line with “objectivity,” especially if we all admit that objectivity is just something we aspire to and doesn’t really exist.
For instance, I strive for objectivity every time I poke our local media, but most of my articles are still solidly in the opinion category, because predictions are by their nature opinions, not facts.
Let’s talk Livejournal. Let’s say I’m a tween with a Livejournal account but I’m not commenting on anything other than leaving personal notes intended for my friends. By every convention, Livejournal accounts are blogs, but I’m not offering any commentary. Does my tween Livejournal scenario count as a blog in your definition, Anna?
If we define it by commentary, does my Disqus profile (a 3rd party commenting system that aggregates my comments from multiple sites in one place) count as a blog?
My point is this: none of these questions result in a usable definition, even if the discussion sparked is interesting to us. It all boils down to self-selection and editorial judgement. And with that said, good luck Todd. :) If I were you, I’d just let every listing stand and let the crowd tag and organize the list, like the Crunchbase.
By mpetty on November 11th, 2009
One more thing before I go to bed with a paid parking study (nerd alert)…
Arguing about whether or not there’s a difference between blogs and journalism is nonsensical. That’s like arguing about whether or not printed ink is journalism. Technology does not imply purpose.
By Roger Benningfield on November 12th, 2009
Dave Winer has always maintained that blogs have a few fundamental characteristics :
- The unedited voice of a person
- Reverse-chronological presentation
- Permalinks
I’d add a couple more:
- Writers who interact with commenters or writers on other sites may be bloggers. Writers who do neither are just writing on the web.
- I’d expand on one of Dave’s criteria to say that a permalink isn’t actually a permalink if you don’t control your domain. So I wouldn’t call a Twitter account a blog, for example.
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By mpetty on November 12th, 2009
http://www.kk.org is an example of a blog that categorizes content. Within each category things are presented in reverse-chronological order, but on the front page posts are featured for weeks or months after newer posts have been published. Reverse-chronological is the standard, but it doesn’t make sense as a definition.
Permalinks being part of the definition definitely fits the bill, as this is just another way of saying content is not replaced.
The domain control criteria doesn’t make sense. What if I’m using a hosted account on Wordpress, or Blogger? What if I’m using Facebook Notes to blog? What if all I’m doing is link-sharing and my del.icio.us account is public with my annotations? With regards to Twitter, some are using Twitter for blogging (as I did when I live-tweeted the #lemke panels), and others are using Twitter as a chatroom, and still others are using Twitter as a feed reader. Twitter really constitutes another techno-generation after the invention of blogs, so it’s not going to fit into a neatly defined package even less than blogs do.
Out of everything that’s been said, blogs being “the unedited voice of a person” makes the most sense. Keep it simple, you know?
By Todd Gill on November 18th, 2009
Well, now that we know that we don’t know any more than we knew before, I’ve declared the blog directory a free-for-all and decided that if someone wants to define their website as a blog, so be it. With that, I submit to you the Flyer Blogfolio.
By mpetty on November 18th, 2009
Five bucks says that nwanews will not take advantage of the opportunity to get free advertising.
By The Truth on November 18th, 2009
Matthew, your constant railing against the newspapers is tiring. There are already two nwanews.com blogs listed.
By Todd Gill on November 18th, 2009
@mpetty – That’s because “bloggers, as a rule, do not go to planning commission meetings.”
To be fair, though, there are two NWAnews blogs listed. Both Slophouse and Tuned In were submitted by their respective authors.
@The Truth, you beat me by a millisecond.
By mpetty on November 18th, 2009
Yeah, I saw that, I was referring to their online offerings which also appear in print.
@The Truth – The newspapers constant copy-editing inaccuracies and the watering down of our local dailies is even more tiring.
“The squeaky wheel gets the grease.” Maybe by the New Year we’ll have an editorial page worth reading again. Doug Thompson, the new Editorial manager, was going to start publishing different letters in each of the dailies, but decided not to after he got one letter from Bella Vista responding to a letter about Fayetteville High School. I wonder how many more letters he would get if he went ahead and tailored each Editorial page to the community it was published in?
One could only guess… or one could look at how much better it was before the merger.
@Greg Harton (I’m sure you’re reading.) – PLEASE start writing more for your blog.
By Anna Miller on January 22nd, 2010
Hey Todd! You look really good in that helmet. How would you like to put that helmet to tackle me and pound me to the ground.