We're searching for a blogger for a client in California, and one of the main requirements is that the individual be a blogger, and not a writer.
The question we face, is how to describe what a blogger is, without resorting to sophistry and semantics. I look at blogging as quite different than writing, because writing is an individual task, while blogging is a community effort.
A writer focuses on the content, teasing meaning and clothing argument in metaphor to generate results from a reader. The goal is to elicit emotions, whether those emotions be delight at reading a fiction novel, a thrill from reading a mystery, or trust from reading an industry expert.
A blogger joins a community of like-minded people and experiences life with them. That's the best definition. A blogger has to write to communicate, but their goal is to build a healthy ecosystem of other bloggers that supports them, encourages them, and feeds them, in the sense that getting "fed" is intellectual and emotional stimulation. Blogging is community.
Writing is purely an intellectual exercise. There is a lot to be said for it, and people who classify themselves as writers should be celebrated for their talent, if they have it. But it's not blogging.
Bloggers don't deserve to be celebrated. Blogging at its best is simply social networking online. For groups of moms, scientists, recruiters, knitter, Iranian women looking to date, and partisans, and lovers of the Gothic Martha Stewart, blogging is a online mirror of the actions we take in the real world. Blogging is the latest tool we use to express ourselves, and is properly understood as a phenomenon, an evolutionary expression of human society.
So when I say I'm looking for a blogger - I far prefer someone who reads other blogs, comments, sends e-mails, rejoices in small triumphs for friends they meet online, and truly interacts with the other people online. I'm not looking for a writer.
Those who wish to be better bloggers should remember this. Writing is wonderful - but there are plenty of writers toiling in obscurity. There is no such thing as a lonesome blogger.
