When Is A Blog No Longer A Blog?

This is a question I have asked myself many times in the last six months.

A blog by definition is an online diary of one person's views or ramblings on a subject of their choice which of course could be parenting, cooking, beauty or indeed any subject they wish to choose to write about and share on the Internet.

Photo Credit: DIY Daddy Blog

For myself personally, I write a parenting and DIY blog. The parenting side is all about my family life. It's there for my children to read today or whenever they want. It's a history of their childhood and it's forever there in cyber space long after I have left the planet. It's my memories and thoughts to be passed on down to them.

I truly don't care about awards, stats or top 10 lists. I never started blogging for that reason and I don't blog today for that reason. Yes, I have been lucky to be included in some top 10 lists and ok, yes, it's a feel good factor, but really is of no consequence to me because to stay in these lists year after year is almost impossible and I simply don't have the energy or inclination to want to try to achieve that.

Me winning an award? This will never happen, but again I never started blogging to win awards. I know I'm not the right blog that will win awards. That for some reason is reserved for a certain type of blogger.

Now back to my original question.

When is a blog not a blog?

There seems to me to be a lot of blogs , and I use the term blogs very loosely that really don't have a place there. They have become websites that use contributors, and for that reason alone they will ride high in the charts, have great stats and normally win a lot of awards, but this is false. It's actually quite easy to achieve this status when you have numerous contributors. In my humble opinion if a blog is being produced by numerous guest posters then it's not a blog, its a website, a club even, but it's quite simply not a blog!

My disillusionment at the arrogance of some people in the blogging world has left me wondering where I go now.

Blogging has to be fun, exciting and about the written word, not about how much money can I make doing this. I have heard so many times bloggers saying that they need to monetise their blog. My comparison is how do I become a premiership footballer and of course neither is going to happen! As a genuine blogger which I believe I am, you have to do it because you love it.

The emphasis nowadays seems to be on labelling bloggers in certain categories. There seems to be a lot of talk about pro-bloggers so forgive me for appearing stupid, but what is that? Somebody that earns a full-time wage from blogging or somebody that maybe only earns a part-time wage, if that. The expression pro -blogger in itself is a myth and completely unnecessary.

On this basis I must be a professional painter and decorator. I never refer to myself as one because I feel by adding the word professional I sound as if I'm completely up myself and have some sort of self importance! I feel it gives the impression that I think I'm better than the next decorator, maybe, maybe not, but I don't need to make myself better, and the same applies to the blogging world.