Clueless about blogs

Blog Herald reports A new study from Catalyst Group Design on the usability of blogs has found that all New Yorkers know nothing about blogs and related concepts including comments, RSS, trackbacks, and navigation.... Statements in the report included the belief that RSS is what made a blog a blog and that people who had never visited blog couldn’t always identify they were on a blog unless authors placed the word “BLOG” in a big, flashing animated gif at least 200px high at the top of the blog, and that not identifying a blog as a blog is a terrible thing. The report also stated that big orange XML buttons don’t mean anything to the residents of New York, but an “add me to My Yahoo!” button is easier for New Yorkers to understand, although many of them fear that such buttons are really just fronts from spyware and viruses to get on their computers.

Actually a big flashing animated gif is not an indication of something being a blog. We reported earlier about NY Times confuses online forum for a blog, and that website has a big flashing animated gif at the top. It is only 90 pixels high, not 200, and it is an ad about free gas rather than somthing saying this is a blog, but even if it had been 200 pixels high and said this is a blog, it still would not have made the online forum a blog.

I would not call anything a blog if it did not have an RSS feed and Permalinks, and either comments or trackbacks, preferably both.