I wrote a blogging application sometime around 2004 or 2005. Prior to launching it on our Social Media site, my boss at the time asked me, what should we call this? A lot of people are calling these ‘Weblogs’ or ‘Blogs.’
Now, this term was perfectly well-known at the time, if not in fully common usage. There were popular blogs that were clearly ‘weblogs’. I was a dedicated reader of Suck.com. The term, however, was still somewhat ill-defined– if enthusiastically received by early-adopting-marketing types who were all too eager to be on the ground floor of finally making ‘fetch’ happen.
“That’s ridiculous. I call these Journals. Get it? Because they are like a Journal.”
“I don’t think so. Journals sounds dull. Blogs is gaining steam. I think you might be wrong about this.”
“It sounds like desperate internet marketing. Journals is what they are. Not diaries, not Blogs. Journals.”
(To his credit, we went with Blogs.)
So: another example of my being on the wrong side of history, yet again.
I still don’t know what to call what I’m doing.