The occasional scrivener

You say “moblog”, I say “mo-blog”

Dave Winer has, in his inimitable way, defined moblogging for the rest of us. Oh, Scoble helped out too.

The definition?

Moblogging is any activity that occurs away from your normal blog-writing place whose purpose is to create content for your blog.

Hmm.

This is a bit too inclusive, if you ask me. For example, this blog is hosted on a server in the States somewhere (even Rafe, the guy generously donating space and server resources, isn’t sure where — ain’t outsourcing great?). I update it via tramp on emacs, running under screen on a machine in the server closet at work. I just fire up Putty at work, or on the Toshiba in the kitchen, or the Thinkpad while waiting for Viking to sleep, or on the Dell upstairs, or my dad’s computer at his place… So I’m basically moblogging all the time according to Winer/Scoble.

FWIW, others agree with me and have drawn the ire of the man himself. He was just being lighthearted, he says now. Just trying to start a discussion.

Far from me to define moblogging, but it seems to me as futile exercise. If I can blog from my mobile phone, I will (and I have); if I can blog from an internet cafe in Katmandu (or Norrtälje), I will; if I am incarcerated with only a i386 running Windows 3.1 and Trumpet Winsock, I’ll blog with that.

In time, the artificial divide between “blogging” and “moblogging” will disappear. Only a few diehards will consider their

desk, fully supported by [their] normal high-speed net connection, laptop, multi-gigabyte external hard disk, second monitor, USB hub, mouse, etc etc.

as a “normal blog-writing place”. For the rest of us, the world will be that place.

Update I headed over to Scoble just to see that the link worked, and it turns out he’s dumped some guy’s feed, because he was fooled by a hoax. Well, so was Rich, and he admits it. Yet he’s “dumped”. Scoble “can’t trust what goes on his blog anymore”.

Wow. Talk about taking lessons from the master. No wonder they’re defining terms for the edification of the rest of us.

Posted at 22:19, in the comm » mobile category. Comments [0]
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