I’m getting mellower in my old age. I mean, look at this place. Movable Type all over the place, photos and delicious links in the right-hand column… What is this, a blog or something?

Nuh-uh. You’re not even close. Still not a damn blog.

I guess that some people would probably accuse me of dabbling in mere semantics at this point, and I think, to be fair, they’d be correct. This site (particularly on the other side of the fence, where I write an irregular diary about relocating from London to Silicon Valley) has an awful lot in common with others which fall under the banner of “blogs”.

But the semantics of the issue are important to me.
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Ever since I first wrote a short text titled “Not a Damn Blog” back in August 2002, I’ve been watching with some interest the emerging trends in internet technology, and the ways they’re being described, jargonised and lionised.

The good news, from an observer’s point of view, is that not a lot has changed. That’s the bad news too.

We’ve entered a new “tech bubble”, without anyone quite realising it. It’s still about hyperbole and over-valuation, but the action isn’t on Wall Street this time. Instead, it’s taking place in convoluted blog threads, and the commodity being shifted is buzzwords; a new one seemingly every month.

Will the bubble burst? I’m honestly not sure. The nature of language development suggests that we’ll see more of a deflation, the majority of buzz phrases fading into obscurity after a few short months or years of excitement.

I’ll tell you one thing, though: it’ll be an absolute hoot for cultural historians years from now.
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