Semantics Lesson: Blog vs. Post

Note: This post was originally featured on 563media.com (and before that, MySpace).

This is a reprint of an article I originally wrote in 2004 on MySpace, in reaction to a semantic error that allowed users to “Post a New Blog.” Unfortunately, this confusion over blog vs. post persists. Today, hundreds of thousands of people incorrectly refer to their individual blog entries as “blogs” instead of “posts,” a semantic error which is like nails on a chalkboard to us early adopters.

When I hear someone refer to a single post or entry as a “blog,” I assume they don’t know much about social media. Don’t look foolish in front of your friends and business associates! Read on to learn what you should be saying. To bring this post up-to-date, where you see “MySpace” below, insert the social network or community of your choice (e.g., Huffington Post, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.).

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Blogs are websites that refresh their content on a regular basis.

Posts are the things that comprise blogs, the way chapters comprise books.

If you say to someone, “I read your blogs all the time,” that means, “You have more than one website that refreshes its content on a regular basis, and I read all of them.”

If you say to someone, “I read your posts every day,” that means, “You post to your blog every day and I am right there with you, baby.”

If you say to someone, “I read your blog [singular] every day,” that means “You have one website that refreshes its content on a regular basis, and I read it every day because you are just that awesome, and also, my boss never enters my cubicle.”

If you say to someone, “I just wrote a blog about my bad day,” that means “I just wrote an entire website, comprised of many posts, all of which are about my bad day.”

If you say to someone, “Did you read my blogs on MySpace?” that means “I have several blogs on MySpace, which also means I have several identities on MySpace, which means that I killed my boss and am hiding his body somewhere you’ll never find it,” or, “I am unemployed.”

(To any potential future employers who may stumble upon this: I am a freelancer.)

So.

Myspace has made a semantic error on the site. There is no such thing as “Post a new blog.” You can create a new blog, but you write a new post.

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Beginners: for more about the right way to blog and use social media, check out A Brief Introduction to Internet Publicity.