Some hubbub going on about Filipino news outlet Inq7’s Talking Points “blog.” Heh. That’s not a blog, anymore than a guestbook is a magazine. My underwhelmed reaction is posted as a comment to Sassy Lawyer’s Mislead Us Not entry:

Corporate groupthink seizes on the latest buzzword — “blog” — and attempts to capitalize on it by implementing a half-baked op-ed stream. I couldn’t even get past the kilometric self-congratulating introductory “happy text” before losing interest.

This isn’t the first company to try and co-opt the term “blog” for its own ends. Remember Amazon’s “plog?” (Where is it now?) Inq7 had a great chance to roll out a Mefi-like weblog, to build community and enhance the Inq7 brand. Instead they have what amounts to a static email-submission page with less interactivity than a guestbook; neither compelling nor revolutionary.

More fascinating to me is this new example of the fierce protectiveness webloggers have over terminology and concept. Remember the JesusJournal brouhaha? We feel strongly about this medium and our place in it, and are quick to jump on anyone who gets it wrong. Why is that?

Next time I want lots of attention for a non-weblog project, I’m going to pull a “Talking Points” and call it a “blog.” </silly>

Inq7 tech guy Joey Alarilla defends himself, and Sassy Lawyer has yet more linkage.

Update: You know what? I take it back. Inq7 Talking Points is a regularly updated series of posts in reverse-chronological order. Sure, it only has one “real” contributor who just pastes in emails he receives, and sure, the blog lacks permalinks and commenting, and each entry ends with a word “Links” which only goes to one link, and it starts with a mile-long string of what usability expert Steve Krug calls “happy text” — but still, in the loosest, most magnanimous sense of the word, it is a blog.

Just not a very good one. Sorry.