I have two questions that I ‘d like to explore in this series of posts. What’s a Blog? and What’s a Podcast? The answers to these questions may seem to be simple but I’m increasingly finding out that it’s not so.

My motivation for exploring these issues lies in the fact that I am hearing quite a bit of confusion from individuals and businesses that are confused about what blogs and podcasts are and how they can be used.

Proper framing the issue requires a historical review of sorts.

Back in the late 90s when blogs began to be utilized as a platform for communication on the web it seems as though a blog was really defined by the type of content and the way it was presented on the web. Blog posts represented a new approach that amounted to a digital daily journal. The average blogger would add short posts to their site on a regular basis. At the time Bloggers generally used tools such as Radio Userland, Blogger and now defunct tools like GreyMatter to publish these regular blog posts.

Those early days were very simple and my feeling is that a blog could be defined then as a site where the blogger regular posted items to a website. Saying, “I have a blog”, simply meant that you maintained a stream of thought on your website.

A few years passed and the technology behind blogging improved. This improved technology afforded more functionality to the blogger and the blog reader with the addition of rss, tagging, commenting and trackbacks to name a few. New players in publishing like Movable Type, WordPress and Live Journal entered to provide the publisher with sometimes simpler and sometimes more advanced tools.

Simpler meant more people were blogging and taking approaches that were not necessarily the ones taken by the early adopters. Advanced tools meant publishers could extend blogs to add more to the site than simply individual posts. Let’s say this period takes us to mid-2004. Was the definition of a blog in 2004 the same definition as in 2001? I don’t think so.

In 2004 the definition of a blog became more aligned with the features utilized in the presentation of the blog. Newer tools like Blogger and WordPress allow for syndication via ATOM and RSS. These newer tools typically allow for commenting and trackbacks as well as pinging of servers to announce new content. The tools allow for tagging so that blog search sites like Technorati and Sphere can index information contained in individual posts.

I think that this definition carries forward to where we are in 2006. Is a website considered a blog if it doesn’t utilize RSS? How about if there’s no commenting capability? A recent controversy broke out in the world of blogging over the launch of Dell Computer’s One2One blog. Almost immediately after launching the blog Dell was chastised by a number of influential bloggers for failing to do it right. But what exactly is right when you’re talking about a blog?

I think that in 2006 in order to have a website that is truly defined as a “blog” you must utilize RSS and comments at a minimum to syndicate and extend the conversation respectively. I also think that the 2006 definition of a blog includes one where the blogger adds posts on a regular basis. Some may disagree. And in order to reliably publish while including functions like commenting and trackbacks you must use a certain toolset. Hence, tools services like TypePad, Blogger and WordPress.com or apps like Movable Type and WordPress are defined as blogging tools.

Now lets muddy the waters a little bit. In late 2004 the idea of a Podcast was born.

To be continued…

[tags]Social Media, Blogs, Podcasts, Analysis[/tags]