#131 Splogging

Recently I was looking at my blog. If you’ve ever wondered what a blog is, well, essentially it’s whatever you want. Blog is short for web-log. In the parlance of the computer world, where electronic mail gets shortened to email, and instant messaging someone gets shortened to IM-ing someone, it’s no surprise that Web-log would get shortened to blog. I mean, what’s the alternative, “Webl”?
I’ve touched before on how words evolve and how what seems an obvious choice sometimes gets pushed aside because the public favors the feel of the other word on the tongue or ear. Like some linguistic battle between Beta and VHS, better doesn’t always win. Mouse Mat was a great verbal contender for the things under our mouses, or should I say mice, but pad won out despite its feminine hygiene connotations. Its promise of comfort somehow resonated with the sensibilities of people, while “mat” must have conjured up notions of sweaty, wrestling types.
“Spam” was another one of those computer age creations. Usenet geeks took a perfectly good word for a wonderful spiced ham concoction whose epicurean delights are near legendary, and applied it to Internet junk mail. Why? Is junkmail succulent and smoky? Is junkmail created from the delicately flavored specialty meats of presumably porcine origin? Can you fry junkmail in bacon grease, slap it on a wonder bun, and slather it with yellow mustard and piquant ketchup for a treat to die for? No. I shall say no more.
Anyhow, “blogs” are easily updateable mini-websites where if you are an obsessive writer like me, you can post the daily drivel that drizzles from your brain for all the world to see and say, “so that’s what they mean by yellow matter custard dripping from a dead dogs eye.”
On my blog I chanced to notice some comments on one of my essays. Blogs have comments sections so strangers can agree or disagree with your custard. I found out then that if you enable anonymous comments, all hell breaks loose. And it breaks loose with something called a splog. A splog is spam on a blog. Two made-up words joined to make another made-up word that actually describes a new and terrible thing. Someone posts a comment on your blog, says it’s great, then goes on to describe a product or opportunity to lose weight or make a jillion dollars and then asks you to visit his website, which is a blog for say, mentholated diapers or something. Search crawlers being focused on things like hit-counts and links and comment entries, suddenly the whole Internet is at risk of splogs bringing down its google-ized search-ranking edifice.
Another example of advertising stuffing the cracks. Maybe that’s where that spam word came from. When there’s no room for a whole chunk of meat, you can always cram in some spam.
America, ya gotta love it.