Posts Are Not Blogs

I realize that easy-to-use blogging software has given lots of folks access to this technology, and that there will be an inevitable sloppiness about terminology, but I share with Grant Barrett a pet peeve about the use of the word “blog” when the person really means “post.”

I just received a press release about the fact that Traci Des Jardins is now a guest blogger at the Epicurious blog. I noticed that Des Jardins made the post/blog mistake when I saw her post on the site — prior to receiving the press release — but thought little of it: I assume she’s not a techie. But the PR person repeated the mistake in an email sent to, I assume, lots of bloggers.

She wrote: “You can read her first blog which posted yesterday about easing the holiday pain (see link and blog pasted below).”

With a touch of that “big dose of personality” that Amanda once mentioned, I wrote back.

If I may, let me point out that Traci Des Jardins did not write her first blog yesterday: She wrote her first post on a blog. As a non-techie, she can be forgiven the mistake, but if you, the PR person, are sending this note out to bloggers, it sounds odd to make "blog" and "post" synonymous. A blog contains posts; they are not the same.

I also noted that I don’t link to celebrity bloggers until they’ve proven that they’ll keep writing and not peter out. She wrote back to assure me that Des Jardins would be posting in the future.

She closed that second note with, “Hope you will be enjoying her blogs.”