Marksonland

A quick follow up to my last post on the evolution of the name "blog." One of the reasons I think that this name has evolved is that no one managed to own the term and successfully brand it. It is quite a feat for a company's brand to be so omni-present that it actually encompasses the underlying good or service. The obvious ones in the past were things like Xerox for copies and Kleenex for tissues.

I think Google is an example of a more recent one. The term Google now means "to search the web" and, more importantly, when someone tells you they did a web-search on a subject, you automatically conjure up images of a Google search. A web search is a Google search and vice versa. This is a pretty impressive feat.

The same thing did not happen with the term blog though. For whatever reason, no one has yet to grab a material share of the blog market and thereby inextricably tie the term to their product. As a result the name drifts and now encompasses things like Topix forums, MySpace pages, etc. Imagine though if Six Apart would have locked down the blog market in the same manner that Google has locked down search. Usage of the term "blog" would immediately conjure up images of the Moveable Type product and the brand it conveys. Similar to how the term "operating system" immediately conjures up images of Windows - er, Vista.

Without an owner, a name, like a stray dog, tends to wander.