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January 08, 2004

Blog vs Journal

There is a pretty thought provoking post over at Mookie Riffic about the difference between a Journal and a Blog. I read that, liked it and then had a think for a bit. For me the difference is a degree of formality and interaction. If I were writing a journal it would be written for a purpose and therefore formal (like say a report for your boss). A blog on the other hand is the equivalent of a chat over a cup of coffee in the cafeteria.

A lot of the ops (operations) staff start early to make sure things are working before the punters (i.e. users) get in 9:00. Given that the ops staff are generally around for longer hours they have a few short breaks and between 8:00 and 8:30 most of them are sitting down in the (subsidised) cafe drinking $1.30 cappuccinos or similar. The discussion is open and covers topics of interest: user stories, TV shows (as I don't watch TV I can't contribute to this part), user stories, movies, boss stories, jokes, user stories, sports, work stories and some general gossip. Apart from the user stories (which I can't use for fear of identifying them), I figure a blog is similar (at least for me). These stories are the things I would chat about over coffee with my mates and I figure that this is just like that.

This suggests that (1) you should be drinking coffee while you read this and (2) you should join in the conversation (via comments or trackback) just as you would over a cuppa. By the way, if you ever come to this cafeteria and order a skim-milk decaf cappuccino with artificial sweetener, don't be surprised if the coffee-maker (barista?) calls it a 'why bother'!

So go read Mookie's post and leave a comment or a trackback (here or there) - what do you think the difference is between a blog and a journal.

[For the purists: I won't call it a web-log or even a 'blog because a web log is found somewhere like /var/log/http/access_log and holds apache event records. If you want to read web logs - feel free but they have less content than a blog!]

Posted by Ozguru at January 8, 2004 02:01 PM

Comments

Thanks. Glad you liked it. =)

Posted by: Mookie at January 8, 2004 02:01 PM

That was a terrific dissection of the difference between the two Oz. I shall have to quote you ... soon. I much prefer your explanation to the ones I've read elsewhere.

Posted by: Cindy at January 8, 2004 02:01 PM

Blog vs Journal II There was a post last week about the difference between a blog and a journal. To prove that a picture is worth at least a thousand words, check out this brilliant cartoon. This would not have happened if Jivha only had a journal instead of a blog!

Posted by: GDay Mate at January 8, 2004 02:01 PM

Blogs Vs. Journals I was asked recently what a blog is and to describe it in layman's terms. It just so happened that Ozguru at G'Day Mate had posted recently about the difference between blogs and journals, so I used Oz's description...

Posted by: Dusting My Brain at January 8, 2004 02:01 PM

Journal vs Blog It's come to my attention recently, that technically there is a difference between an online journal and a (we)blog. I've been operating under the belief that basically, they are synonyms for each other, they are one in the same, functionally id...

Posted by: cyron.id.au at January 8, 2004 02:01 PM