In my MA thesis I moved away from the genre approach of blogging that often sees blogging as a form of keeping a diary or as a form of journalism. Rather, I looked at the blog as native to the web, which has its very specific features. With the introduction of blog software standards and search engines the blog has changed significantly. The default settings in the blog software have turned it into an atonomous unit in the network. The blogosphere is just a small part of this network where search engines, ping services, feed readers and other services play an important role.

The blog has changed so much that it is increasingly becoming harder to define it as both the medium and practice of blogging have changed. This prompts the next question in reference to the Wired article whether blogging is ‘over’. Blogging is not over and blogs are not dead but they have evolved into something that no longer resembles the old logging of the web practice that prompted the original word ‘weblog.’ Blog software is often used for publishing magazines or newspapers and the practice no longer resembles the practice of the personal logging of the web.

Seth Godin also noted in ‘the State of the Blogosphere 2008‘ that

The word blog is irrelevant, what’s important is that it is now common, and will soon be expected, that every intelligent person (and quite a few unintelligent ones) will have a media platform where they share what they care about with the world.

Bruce Sterling, the conference keynote speaker and longtime blogger, notes that we need a new word for weblog that better describes the current practice. But not just any word, it should be as catchy as the ‘blog’ word is and has become. Content Management System or CMS just does not sound as exciting. Bruce Sterling: “The person who comes up with the new buzzword for ‘blog’ should win a Nobel Prize!”

Suggestions in the comments are welcome :)

Conference coverage:

• Paulien Drescher’s report in English for the Masters of Media blog
• Speaker Julian Bleeker’s account in English
• Leonieke Verhoog’s account in Dutch for the VPRO.

Tomorrow I will be attending BLOG08, a Dutch blog conference held in Amsterdam. As a blog researcher this is a conference I cannot miss. Due to my background I am particularly interested in the “non-commercial” panels such as Blogging and politics and Journalism versus/ hearth blogging and less interested in How to build a blog empire.

I will provide the conference coverage for the British journalism site journalism.co.uk so keep an eye on the column ”Online journalism news for journalists or stay tuned here, on Flickr or Twitter.

My friends gave me this t-shirt as a graduation present two months ago. It is now the “T-shirt of the day” at Googlified.com, nice.

UPDATE: The t-shirt refers to my MA thesis which is now online: Blogging for Engines. Blogs under the Influence of Software-Engine Relations

While checking my blog’s statistics I notice more and more people finding my blog through the search engines query “anne.” While “Anne Helmond” has always been a very commonly used keyword in my blog statistics just plain “anne” is quite new. It turns out that I am currently the number twelve Anne on Google.com and the number thirteen on Google.nl. Of course this number differs per person, per platform, per cookies set, per <insert any random Google variable.>

I admit it is a vain finding but I’ve always been extremely interested in my blog’s stats. They feed my daily portion of stat addiction and they inspire me to write blog posts such as ‘Get Your Post Inspiration from Referer Keywords‘ for the Blog Herald. My stat keywords often give me new ideas for posts and they show me how Google relates my posts to a combination of keywords used.

Here are some of my recent favorite search engine queries that directed people to my blog:

• After deleting a myspace how soon can you make another one
  This query returned the following post on my blog: International Delete Your Myspace Account Day: The Morning After is Elfriendo Day! The post does not give the answer to the query but instead offers you the elfriendo service which can easily update your stale MySpace profile or create a new one tailered to your interests.

• we are sorry we have been neglecting you lately &
  sorry i have to give up my blog
  These queries return the following post on my blog: I’m sorry blog excuses which deals with the common habit of apologizing to one’s blog readers but also to the blog itself for not posting. This interesting phenomenon led to a follow-up post on ‘dead blogs’ titled ‘Daily blogging routine and the perceived freshness fetish.’ The question why I feel the need to blog daily is grounded in the increasing focus on freshness and updating on the web. I explored the history of freshness on the web in the use of under construction signs, last updated scripts, pinging services, blog apologies and Twitter in an essay on ‘The Perceived Freshness Fetish.’

• excellent photos
  I feel honored.

• can’t wait to be finished university
  I am the number 1 hit on Google for this query with my post on ‘Thesis Finished and New Job at the University of Amsterdam‘ which is actually quite ironic because I started a new phase at the University a day after finishing one.

Search engine queries reveal quite interesting things and often quite personal things too. I only recently started documenting interesting findings but I remember queries such as ‘i’m sorry i left you.’ Your digital traces are not only stored in your browser history but also in my blog’s statistics.

I will be blogging about blogging and blog software from an “academic” point of view. My first series of posts will be related to my upcoming thesis on Blog Software and the Act of Blogging.

You are welcome to read and comment on my first post at the Blog Herald: “Rethinking the Blog as Database“