Bastardizing Blogging

filed under Business of Blogging · 4 comments in the original

You know you're moving in the right direction when big media starts bastardizing the name of your tools. I was quite amused to tune into CNN.com this morning and came across the CNN Debate Blogs.

So I tuned in, much expecting to find the usual style, format, and familiarity I have come to rely on for traditional blogs. Naturally, I was wrong. The blog label had been bastardized and made into a veritable marketing hook.

Perhaps I'm being elitist about this, but here's what seems to be wrong:

It more resembles an IM session with oneself
There's no form of syndication present
There's no interaction (I know this is more optional)
Did I mention it's NOT A BLOG?

Rant aside, this is very interesting to me. On one level, I see this as a rare, perhaps new, form of blog -- the micro blog. This blog was "designed" to exist for exactly 90 minutes. It's value is extremely short-lived and most likely decays exponentially as fuller, detailed coverage of the same event occurs. This is not all that different from, say, the event blog. Of course, event blogs evolve and continue in traditional blogging environments, instead of in the clutches of big media.

On the other hand, it's impressive that blogging has grown to have such mindshare that people want to "copy" it not because it's effective but because it's deemed popular enough.