Blogging can be more than writing

A BLOGGER IS JUST A WRITER WITH A COOLER NAME: "dumenco@gmail.com"

Simon Dumenco's Media Guy column argues that blogging isn't qualitatively different than writing published in print. While I agree that written communication published in print shouldn't be privileged over that published on the web, blogging is different because it allows for different kinds of communication to flourish.

Not all bloggers are writers. Some post pictures, audio files, raw data, video etc. and are creating new ways of interacting with media and highly personal and creative ways to present and communicate with it. (As Adam Curry points out, it also gives people the ability to report by using and presenting their sources and not merely interpreting them. It allows for perfect copying rather than imperfect copying.)

As a professional writer, I was slow to take up blogging because I looked at blogging only as a way to publish writing. (I had to find that perfect idea.) Now that I'm looser in my interpretation of what to do with a blog, I'm realising the real potential for blogging as a way to interact with and track the information I encounter. It will be interesting to see how this will change my writing but I'm also thrilled to find these other ways to communicate with poeple.