We need new names, folks. Some of us have multiple blogs. We use blogs as building blocks for sometime larger than a blog. If you use bricks to build a house, then what is it that you build with blogs? We need a name for this thing.
“Site” is not specific enough. You can have a site without any blog components at all.
“Hyper-blog” is lame. Who wants to be a “hyper-blogger”? Ditto “super-blogger”.
Any ideas on names for the structures we are building?
“meta-blog”?
Wikipedia says:
Meta (Greek: ???? = “after”, “about,” “beyond”), is a common English prefix, used to indicate a concept which is an abstraction from another concept, used to analyze the latter. For example “metaphysics” refers to things beyond physics, and “meta language” refers to a type of language or system which describes language.
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Not a bad idea, Arthur. But would you call a house a “meta-brick”?
Maybe this too old-fashioned, but aren’t we building journals with our blogs which are created with words and images?
A web log (blog) is a journal, you’re right about that. If you have multiple blogs, they could be considered journals in parallel. But I think people making multiple blogs are building something more than parallel journals. Also, some of us use some of the blogs more as web pages than journal pages. I agree that journal is a key concept, but it doesn’t seem to cover the synthesis.
Hey, what about “blog synthesis”? Not great, but interesting. I think it would be nice to find a term that did not include the word blog.
Perhaps I should have said “book” rather than journal. A book is a collection of pages — and depending on the book, the pages aren’t necessarily related. If you look at a book as the same kind of structure as a house, what you are putting together is pages. In a house you might use bricks to create walls and rooms. In a book you use pages to put together chapters and sections. The whole web “thing” is built on pages. So with our multiple blogs are we not building web books our of our web pages (blogs)?
I think the brick metaphor is misguided. If you stick some bricks together, all you have basically is a stack of bricks. They may be supporting each other structurally, but they don’t interact otherwise. I was joking with “meta-blog”, but I think its important to indicate something like a living system, something more then just a set. “Blog network” perhaps?
“Personal Blog Network” (PBN)?
Arthur, it seems you are not very interested in architecture.
Gramercy Galleria, “book” is an excellent word. I have been thinking of this also. We need something that powerful, but also not that word exactly, I think, unless the definition of book is to change.
Paul Graham asks, what should we call people publish online? His answer is, writers.
Arthur, I think blog network is a literal description of what we have. It is like calling a house a stack of bricks. It is not incorrect, but it does not inspire the imagination. I have a feeling you will come up with the term, but perhaps you need to start writing parallel blogs yourself first.
Arthur, it seems you are not very interested in architecture.
I think a group of rooms would work better as a metaphor than a stack of bricks. Wasn’t it my suggesion that a website is like a living room?
perhaps you need to start writing parallel blogs yourself first.
I hope to start writing for a group blog very soon: http://ithacatimes.wordpress.com/
Oh, and the term “blogosphere” is horrible. I never use it.
Arthur, you just did.
Yes, I remember your living room comment. I guess you had more insight there than I did.
You also said that blog posts (not to mention blog comments) are only of transient interest . . .
Arthur, you just did.
Philosophers of language distinguish between the “use” of a term and its “mention”. My typing the dreadful b word falls in the latter category. Its like the difference betwen calling you a piece of shit and pointing out that “shit” is a word in the English language.
On a a less pedantic note, blogs as rooms in houses seems to be a good direction.
Bookshelf seems better than book.
Karl: I read this stream of comments after the ‘parallel blogs’ post.
I don’t see auspiciousdragon.net as a stream of parallel journals but a single journal. It is varied because our interests are varied. The balance alters over time. We are both generalists, not specialists, and always have been.
“Daybook” might be another appropriate name for what we do, as might the more pedestrian “diary”.
Played with Lincoln Logs as a kid. How about Linkin’ Blogs?