Monday, July 07, 2003

Blog Glossary

Blog Glossary

Including:


Blogerati
noun. The blogosphere (qv) intelligentsia.

Blogger ecosystem
phrase. A chart or lists showing the links between blogs. Also: Blog ecosystem.

Bloggerel
variant of "doggerel." Opinion put forward on a blog that has previously been repeated over and over and over again until it makes people sick.
(Coined by The Pontificator)

Bloggerverse
noun. See Blogosphere.

Blogistan
noun. The totality of blogs; blogs as a community.
However, the term is sometimes used to mean the totality of just warblogs (qv), or pundit blogs (qv) rather than the entire blogosphere (qv). Also see: blogosphere, blogiverse

Blogiverse
noun. See blogosphere.

Blognoscenti
noun. A blog connoisseur.

Blogorrhea
noun. An unusually high volume output of articles on a blog.

Usage: "Well, 48 hours and 4,195 words later, we're reaching for our dictionary to check the definition of "significantly." After that, we're going to look up blogorrhea."
- William Quick

Blogosphere
noun. The totality of blogs; blogs as a community
(coined by William Quick)

Blogroll
1. noun. A list of links in the sidebar of a blog, often linking to other blogs. Also: blog roll.
2. . A blog link management system such as www.blogrolling.com
Also see: Sidebar links

Blogspot
noun. The blog hosting servers operated by blogger.com. More blogs are hosted on blogspot than anywhere else.

Blogstipation
1. noun. To be unable to think of anything to blog about, i.e. writer's block for bloggers.
2. noun. To be unable to post an article on your blog because blogger.com is down yet again.
(meaning 2. coined by Jim Treacher)

Blogule
noun. A concept or point within an article on a blog that is not quite grandiose enough to be a 'meme'.
(coined by Brian Micklethwait)

Blurker
1. noun. One who reads many blogs but leaves no evidence of themselves such as comments behind; a silent observer of blogs.
2. noun. One who reads many blogs but has no blog of their own; a blog-watcher or blog voyeur.

Dead-tree media
phrase. Paper newspapers and magazines, also known as Old Media. Also: 'on dead trees'.

Hitnosis
noun. Being unable to stop yourself constantly refreshing your browser to see if your hit counter or comments section has increased since the last time you did it (i.e. about 1 minute ago). This often occurs when a 'memorable number' is coming up (such as a blog's hit counter crossing 10,000 or 100,000 or 250,000 visitors etc.) or an unusually large surge of posted comments are attracted by an article.
(coined by Perry de Havilland)

Instapundited
tr.verb. To have your blog mentioned on Instapundit.com. Also: Instalanche.
Usage: "Holy shit, look at the hit counter! We must have been Instapundited!"
Also see: Slashdotted

Link rot
noun. Over time any large list of links will contain an increasing number of dead links.

Link whore
noun. A blogger (qv) who will go to any lengths to get other bloggers to link to them (the term is usually intended to be humourous). Also: Link slut. Both terms are in fact non-gender specific.

Meme
noun. A meme is considered to be a discrete idea that replicates itself, with the connotation that memes replicate themselves and are propagated by people through social and technological networks, much like both real and computer viruses.
(Coined by Richard Dawkins)
Usage: "The sarcastic meme of 'Our friends, the Saudis' continues to spread across the Intenet"
Note: Although not strictly speaking a 'blog specific' term, meme is very widely used in the Blogosphere (qv).
Also see: Meme hack, Meme war

Ping
1. noun. A ping is a system administrator tool that is an automated packet of information (64 bytes) sent through a network to another to establish the status of a target system.
2. verb. To ping another site is to send a small automated packet of data to actuate some expected function, such as a Trackback (qv).
PING is an acronym for 'Packet INternet Grouper'

Progblog
noun. A 'Progressive Weblog'. A blog expressing various left wing political views.
(coined by Madeleine Begun)

Pundit blog
noun. A blog (qv) focused on news punditry. The bulk of a pundit blogs' content will be dissection of, or pointers to, stories currently running in the established media. Pundit blogs are largely the same thing as News blogs. Also: Punditblog.
Pundit blogs form one of the three primary distinct (and largely separate) cultural groups within the blogging world, the other two being Journal blogs and Tech blogs.
The archetypal pundit blog is Instapundit.com