So, I stumbled upon Shel Holtz post, I’m a blogger, just not one of these bloggers, then the next day, or in the evening I had a short conversation with Curt Monash, and then I wanted to write a bit more of my thoughts on this whole ‘bloggers’thing.

First of all, who are the bloggers? Who is a ‘blogger’?

I find that people call everyone who has a blog a ‘blogger’, which seems like the correct thing, only. Only the word starts to get a more solid meaning. ‘Bloggers’do this, ‘bloggers’do that. It starts to become a primary attribute, something that defines the person.

I remember that a few years ago we had blogger meetings. The ‘bloggers’met in a pub. Well, actually it was a bunch of people from different professions and cities, who happened to write blogs, about their own life.

I don’t think we were bloggers. Not any more than we were diarists. It was a small part of our life, but then I could define myself as a lawnmower, or a driver or a walker – the latter I do more than any of the other – or maybe even a sitter, as I sit a lot.

I would keep the ‘blogger’tag to people who either make it their job, or for whom it is a big part of their job.
I am not one. It’s a hobby, it’s a way to put out my opinion if I wish, but I am not a ‘blogger’. I can go for weeks without posting. I do not concentrate on anything in particular. And I doubt that people who kept diaries or journals in the old times were called ‘diarists’, or ‘journalists’if I think about it. The latter means an entirely different thing.

So, I think most of the people we refer to as ‘bloggers’are just people. They eat the same stuff the rest of the world.

And then, there are some who write blogs as a job, or as a big part of their business, like Hugh MacLeod, or ProBlogger, or Shel Holtz who I would call bloggers, maybe.

Even then, I am hesitant to call a PR or marketing professional a blogger, even if half his work is done on a blog. He is not a blogger in my opinion, he just uses a tool.

So, the more I think about it, there are not many real bloggers. Blogs are tools. A way to put your thoughts out there. Tools like emails, newsgroups, and you never heard anyone call people ‘emailers’or ‘newsgroupers’did you?

Just a few thoughts of a software developer, who sometimes posts on his blog.

And what are your thought?

It is just plainly telling why I don’t blog so frequently. Time is scarce, and yes, I am lazy at times, plus, when I got a good post idea I am either driving to/from work, out somewhere where I can’t write it down, or working so I simply don’t have time to do it.

And by the time I got home, I am either too tired, or too involved with my friends on secondlife to post here.

The good news about blogs is that they’re very powerful. The bad news is that they’re very time consuming. So no wonder in the last two years we’ve seen so many other kinds of “Cheap, Easy, Global Media” spring up- Twitter, Facebook, YouTube etc etc.

I don’t really know about powerful. Probably they are, although I still see the “echo chamber” effect mostly, bloggers oh-ing and ah-ing, techno sites raving and hype-ing, and then they realize that the rest of the world, the actual target does not give a damn about the subject. iPhone introduced in the UK, anyone?
The time consuming yes, that I can attest too. If you write something else than your dinner, you need time. Not just to write the post. If I want to write a little review, or just an opinion about Francis Fukuyama’s book, The Trust, I have to read it first. And not just read it, I have to mark up or note down interesting points and ideas in the book, and then I can start to write the post.

Twitter seems ok, but I need some for that too – unless all I want to ‘twit’about is my lunch, that my chair is uncomfortable, and such mundane, not too interesting things.

I think the main thing I liked in his post was

Whoever said “Blogs are just a fad” back in the early days was missing the point. It was NEVER about blogs. It was about something far more “vast”.

This whole thing is not about blogs, or twitter, or such. It’s about being an exhibitionist, to have the desire to share our opinion – as someone in the hungarian “blogosphere”, one of the “bloggurus” of hungary put it: “to push their boring, uninteresting opinions and lives on the happless readers.”

He missed the point completely. It’s not pushing. It’s displaying. And then if you are interested, you can read it.