Saturday, October 14, 2006

Defining Blog

"There is no need to define 'blog.' I doubt there ever was such a call to define 'newspaper' or 'television' or 'radio' or 'book' -- or, for that matter, 'telephone' or 'instant messenger.' A blog is merely a tool that lets you do anything from change the world to share your shopping list. People will use it however they wish. And it is way too soon in the invention of uses for this tool to limit it with a set definition. That's why I resist even calling it a medium; it is a means of sharing information and also of interacting: It's more about conversation than content ... so far. I think it is equally tiresome and useless to argue about whether blogs are journalism, for journalism is not limited by the tool or medium or person used in the act. Blogs are whatever they want to be. Blogs are whatever we make them. Defining 'blog' is a fool's errand."

Jeff Jarvis, the veteran print journalist and prominent blogger behind BuzzMachine