I keep hearing people patting themselves on the back saying, “Look – our President has a blog!”
Hmmm. It doesn’t smell like a blog to me because:
- There’s no comments
- There’s no trackbacks
- There’s no personal touch – it’s very, very clearly written by marketers (and certainly not the President himself)
If the White House blog is considered a blog, then check out WaMu’s new blog:
WaMu Blog
Oh, sure, it might LOOK like a list of press releases with an RSS feed – but no. It’s a blog. Just like the White House one. For realz.
All hail the new era of corporate openness and blogging! Woohoo!
I, for one, welcome our new blogging overlords. In all seriousness, I think you're absolutely right about what composes a blog. Anything else is just a carefully constructed press release. Blogging is a lot more intimate because it involves us all in a conversation outside of simple form letters and stock communication. Otherwise, I would get a lot of stock responses from you saying "Brent Ozar would like to thank you for your thoughts… blah blah blah… sincerely [Brent Ozar signature stamp]"
Right, exactly. Instead, you get personal responses that say things like, "You, sir, are an idiot, and I really am going to start enforcing that restraining order."
If the White House and WaMu convince the majority that what they have IS a blog, then guess what it's a blog. We'll have to come up with another word for the 'real' definition of a blog. Maybe 'bi-directional conversational mechanism devoid of most marketing spin.'
Well said. Well said, indeed.
Right on Brent ! Had a good laugh on this one….