Blog vs Blog Post
There has been an interesting misconception going on in the Slovak blogosphere since its opening to the wider audience and general public by the Slovak daily SME in 2005. The misconception arises from the understanding and use of the two terms: a blog and a blog post.
A blog is
[a] website that allows users to reflect, share opinions, and discuss various topics in the form of an online journal while readers may comment on posts
A blog post is
An article posted on a blog
However, many Slovak bloggers have been using the term blog, but what they actually meant was a blog post. As the term blog got stuck with the general public and become a familiar word, even more people now refer to a blog post by using the term blog. Even some Slovak bloggers turned politicians use it in this particular incorrect way (!). The independent (pre-SME era) bloggers have always understood the difference (and some have even been fighting the incorrect usage ever since, although, to no avail).
By using Google to sort out who used the term “this blog” but actually meant “this blog post” in early 2005, we find the first offending bloggers – Jozef Klucho (January 8, 2005) and Tomas Tokarcik (January 20, 2005) (linked are the offending blog posts – look for the Slovak phrase “tento blog”) as far as Google can tell.
The term blog got stuck in the Slovak language with the bloggers under the SME causing its widespread usage and strengthening the misconception in general. By not explaining the difference between a blog and a blog post loud enough during the first months and allowing the misconception to spread, the author of the blog project Tomas Bella and his original insider blogging team must be declared guilty. I should be thankful, though, as I wouldn’t be able to write about the topic in this blog (er… in this blog post).
By the way, the Daily SME must have been the first printed medium in the world (as far as I know) to launch a blogging space open to anyone and even reprinting interesting online posts by the bloggers weekly (at the kind of “public opinions” page) . Tomas Bella, the author of the online blogs at the SME, is currently a partner in NextBig (sorry, no English language there, use Google Translate) – the company trying to negotiate and implement a paywall for the media in Slovakia and Czech Republic.