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My New Year’s Resolution: Stop Using The Word Blogosphere

Published by Joseph Ferrara (2) December 30th, 2006 in Blogging and Rant. Comments

blogosphere.jpg(c) Harley Schwardon

I have a confession to make. I don’t like the word ‘blogosphere’. Never have. I went along with it because I saw it everywhere and I figured that was the consensus. Well, to heck with that. I’m jumping ship. I’m out. I’m not going to use the word anymore. It was a pain to type anyway. That’s my New Year’s resolution and I started today (to get a headstart). I almost used it on NELA live but as I was about to submit comment, I felt sick to my stomach. It had to be the word. So I deleted it. I felt better.

I looked up the term in Wikipedia and it turns out it started as a joke in 1999. Now that is funny. I bet Brad L. Graham is still laughing.

Well, you may ask, whatcha gonna call it? I don’t know yet. I’m hoping, dear reader, for your help.

I’m going to try using other terms until one just fits. I started experimenting and so far they are all as lame as blogosph…. Blogland, blogtown, blogville, blogmunity…yuck! Maybe it’s the word ‘blog’? Not many suffixes seem to pair pleasingly with it. But I dislike weblog even more than blog. ‘Weblog’ strikes me as somewhat elitist (pretentious?), like “that was the original word and how dare you corrupt it to ‘blog’. How pedestrian.” Should we all, then, be webloggers weblogging in the weblogosphere? Yikes. So I can live with blog. It’s short, easy to type, and has, IMO, an everyman quality. It’s a noun and a verb. I blog, you blog, we all blog. But I digress.

Can you suggest another word to describe this environment of blogoholics? or are you all content with blogosph…?

Where’s my Thesaurus?

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  • Yes, that's a tough one.

    The only two replacements that come to mind offhand are:

    "CB Radio 2.0"

    or

    "Nutscape"
  • Too late, I used "Around the Blogosphere" as a category on my blog, I'm used to it. Speaking of new blog words, I love Maureen's - TRIBLOGULAR, on her new blog Columbus Best Blog http://columbusbestblog.com/2007/01/01/happy-ne... (how many times can you use the word blog in the same sentence??>..)

    I just googled triblogular and her site is the only one that comes up.
  • Jim.
    Since I am a lousy typist (i dont know how many times i spelled shpere) I'm leaning to blogos, which is a shortened version. Weblog to blog, blogosphere to blogos. Makes sense to me.
    Either that or blogdom. What else is there?
  • Blogorium, blognation, blogea, blogwana, mondo du blog, need I go on?

    Not to go against the grain, I personally have finally warmed up to blogosphere...
  • It's funny how words evolve and every year, there's a compilation of new words indexed in the new edition of dictionaries. Since I'm a neophyte, I often read these words and sometimes each seems to be a term of endearment, depends on the blog author.

    It starts with a blog->blog author->blog post->blog readers->blog friends->blog community->blogosphere.

    I can't think of another collective noun. I even write blogfriends as 1 word. Others would say friends of the blog [fob]. Who knows, perhaps in the next few years, 'google' will enter the dictionary as a verb. It would mean 'search'. Students are even starting to use it. "I googled the topic." Whether it's correct or not, it's for convinience brought about by familiarity of the word/product and its function. :)

    Happy New Year blogos... Sellsius! :)
  • Prior to the "b- verbal word" people wrote these same messages and sent pictures by email,posted on message boards and in forums.So whatever we're doing is nothing new. In essence we are glorified emailers are now out of the closet and exposing our messages to the world wide web. So we're out of the closet glorified messengers spreading the word. ughhhh. I don't know. Call yourself what you want but whatever we do I hope we can maintain our humanity and civility. Can I get a witness?
  • The doorbell is the chat. It rings whenever someone comes to the blog. I think you can turn it off by clicking the gold bell.
  • I will add my name to the list that does not like blogosphere. Nothing wonderful comes to mind though. Blogalaxy makes me think of exlax.

    I don't mind blogdom. Bloggerdom. Land of the blogs. I dunno.

    Can't help.

    PS why is there a doorbell on your site? It keeps ringing.
  • Blogiverse hmmm, not bad Jay. Kinda like it.

    Blug is funny. I'll have to remember that one as I often muck up the works here and rudy has to fix it.
    Blogos...that's interesting, sort of like blog cosmos.

    I'll have a virtual drink or 2 & think about it. Happy New Year to all.
    http://tinyurl.com/hujkt
  • I am among an immense worldwide community of professionals (and otherwise) who publish articles of topical interest on the web through specialized software that organizes content for people who have nothing better to do than to read referenced content and offer (or not) comment or an opposing perspective on what the publisher (also known as the author) wrote (also known as musing or ranting).

    I Blog (proper verb).

    I am also the creator of the term BLUG. BLog bUG. A malfunction of the Blogging software (and/or the Blogger...or is it Blugger?). See One small step......into the Blogos...

    Thanks for the fun. Happy New Year to all!

    Stop by the NOVA RE Guide for a virtual glass of champagne (on me).

    Fine Print: We practice safe virtual drinking. One glass only per visitor. Thanks for understanding.
  • Blogdom's not bad. Though my immediate association was "condom"...

    Blogalaxy?
  • Blogtastic post, almost gave me a blogasm when I read it!

    I'm in! I've always found Blogosph... irritating. My 13 year old daughter proclaimed the it a "stupid word" when she first heard it.

    Seems we need *something* though to designate our little (?) world. I've used "Blogiverse" before, but that's pretty much a stupid word too. Though I do sorta like having "verse" (as in writing) tied into it.

    There's got to be a better option than Blogosph... out there somewhere.
  • What about Blogdom?
  • I don't like the word either, and I don't like blogging or blogger. We really don't have words in the english languare to describe the world of blogs, some one who writes a blog, or the activity of writing a blog post. I applaud your efforts and as big and influencial as your blog is, you are too late. I actually don't like the workd bolgoholic either, I call myself a blog addict using two seperate words that are already in the dictionary and cleverly combining them to communicate a new concept. :) Yah I know you count on me to add some wit, keep in mind that my mother is a retired English teacher. We get lazy and have to invent knew words so we don't have to say two words. I guess I am a REALTOR who writes a blog, and is a bit of a blog addict, who frequently visits the internet to read blogs. Maybe we could just call is RSS land.
  • When I'm talking to clients I usually say "The Blog World" since "Blogosphere" strikes me as affected and rather adolescent....
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