Blogorrhea and blogs vs cellulose

Blogorrhea noun. An unusually high volume output of articles on a blog.

Usage: "Well, 48 hours and 4,195 words later, we're reaching for our dictionary to check the definition of "significantly." After that, we're going to look up blogorrhea." - William Quick <www.samizdata.net>

I stumbled across this term the other day. I immediately felt shame. Am I guilty of blogorrhea? Does posting on a daily basis (not for the sake of the reader, but the release of the writer) qualify? Should one let one’s significant other know of this embarrassing condition? (As if the LWW doesn’t know already.)

Part of my long Turkey Day weekend was spent writing and revising two columns for publication in cellulose. Both pieces seemed to come hard from the mind to the page. Blog entries rarely do. I am wondering why.

How does writing for print (or established website) publication differ from writing in a blog?

Print: word count matters - conciceness is a virture
Blog: take as many or few words as one needs - why say something in five words you can say in ten?

Print: topic of broad interest to a particular readership – to inform, convince others
Blog: topic of personal interest – to inform, convince oneself

Print: careful proof-reading, best if by a second party
Blog: catching embarrassing mistakes (usualy)

Print: little reader response
Blog: expected reader response

Print: careful conclusions
Blog: conclusions under construction

Print: deadlines (and those whizzing sounds as they shoot by)
Blog: no deadlines, as inspiration strikes

Print: scheduled for publication 2-6 months in advance
Blog: now, yesterday is old news

Print: formal language (well, kinda for me)
Blog: natural voice, including works like kinda

Print: editorial oversight
Blog: one’s own conscience

Print: monetary remuneration
Blog: jewels in one’s crown (am I biting the hand that pours beer in my mug?)

Print: gravitas
Blog: whatever

I recently attended a Soaring to Excellence teleconference called Google and Your Patrons. One of the video segments showed two college students doing research. One chides the other that she is reading journals, not RSS feeds, to prepare for a class assignment. And this from a library teleconference. Uff-dah!

So who is better informed? The journal reader or the blog reader?
Should monthly print journals/magazines be worried about readership?
What should the informed professional be reading - blogs or journals - when there is not time for both?
What really constitutes blogorrhea? Too many words or too few ideas?

Comments

[Wesley Fryer]

One person's blogorrhea is another person's goldmine. I think it depends entirely on what your interests are as a blog consumer, and what your purposes are as blog content creator. You'll never make everyone happy. I think it is probably important for bloggers to be somewhat consistent, because if they have been writing about a particular thing or in a particular way, then the audience gets accustomed to that, and if the person starts throwing really unexpected curve balls with their post content, style, or quantity, then that may turn regular subscribers off. But I personally like eclectic, and I think it is fine to be consistent all the time. Maybe this can help bloggers avoid the "echo chamber" effect I have read about elsewhere.

No worries about blogorrhea, man! If you are writing what you want to write, then blog on. I know of some bloggers who have joked about intentionally "setting themselves on fire" in terms of a radical position they take to try and attract attention and more comments-- I guess this is a valid purpose for blogging too... but in general, I think most people probably blog for a combination of both intrinsic and extrinsic purposes. Depending on that purpose, the blog length will change. Am I being too wordy here, btw?! ;-)

[BENITABest27]

People deserve wealthy life and mortgage loans or college loan can make it better. Just because people's freedom is based on money.