I’ve been doing some personal musing for a while now over exactly at what point bloggers stopped using the dotorg domain extension and started using the dotcom one. Let me explain.

It seems to me at least some of the more longstanding blogs (or blog-related sites) used org. Case-in-point, Jeremy Wright’s Ensight blog, the Threadwatch blog, and Movable Type’s site. Now, I realize this might be a silly thing to think about, and that it might have been due to nothing more than the dotcom domain was already taken. If so, stop reading. But, I think there is a deeper question here and the BBC site is an appropriate one to discuss it.

It is this: At what point did the paradign shift take place from when blogs were viewed as a purist medium for self expression and become used for commercial purposes? It’s stating the obvious to suggest such a shift has taken place. Perhaps it was gradual, a Gladwellian tipping point sort of thing. But, was there a seismic shift and, if so, when did it occur? If there are any blog historians or anthropologists reading this, I’d enjoy your answer to the question.

With all the newbie bloggers there are out there, it seems to me there might be a need for a book (an essay at least) on the history of blogging. Though blogging has morphed, in that it is being used for a number of purposes now, the essence of it remains the same and we don’t, in my view, need to lose touch with the past just because we are embracing the future.