Is about the only thing missing from CBS News’ mind-numbing writeup of a presumably mind-numbing “report” by tech correspondent David Pogue:
A blog is like a diary or a daily opinion column that you post on the Internet for all to see and comment on. Blogging has become incredibly popular in the last couple of years, because it’s easy to do, it’s free and it’s a great way to leave your little stamp on the Internet, says CBS Sunday Morning contributor David Pogue.
One presumes it was written this way not because Pogue’s lips move when he reads, but because some significant percentage of the U.S. public doesn’t know what a blog is (particularly the ones watching network television).
Pogue gets some credit for quoting Meg Hourihan, one of the creators of the revolutionary Blogger software — and then loses most of it by quoting Ana Marie Cox, who is no longer a blogger (well, not that anybody knows about) but nevertheless remains the Larry Sabato of the blogosphere (perhaps more charitably, the Norm Ornstein). When there’s nobody else to quote, there’s always that girl everyone still calls Wonkette.
What this all means is that we are probably in for another couple years of stories like the one above. Maybe the MSM will collapse before these stories end, but probably not. And while they’re at it, I guess they might as well go ahead and keep pointing out what “blog” is short for.
You’re absolutely correct about the percentage of people who don’t know what a blog is–in short, enormous. Two-thirds of Internet users, according to the survey you linked to–and since