Do readers care what we call it?

Farhad Manjoo writes in Slate about a trend I've noticed lately -- less and less distinction between a magazine article online and a blog post.

Soon, Gawker will no longer be a blog. The same goes for other sites in the Gawker network. The difference is that when these sites publish their scoops, they won't be doing so in a "blog" format—that is, as a reverse-chronological, scrollable index of posts. Instead, Gawker and co. will transform into something more akin to conventional Web magazines.

While Gawker is dropping the blog format, sites of magazines like Wired and The Atlantic are embracing it. (At both outlets, all articles, other than those that first appeared in print, are published in a blog-like format.) Or check out Newsweek, whose home page lists headlines and snippets in reverse-chronological order, just like at your friend's Blogger site.

Does anyone care? Any reader, that is?

"I say this with all possible deference: Who cares?" wrote Joel Johnson, the Gizmodo blogger, when I approached him with such questions. Scott Rosenberg, author of Say Everything, a history of blogging, echoes this point: "Just as journalists think readers have a deep awareness of distinctions like 'hard news piece' vs. 'feature' vs. 'news analysis,' we think they understand or care about the line between 'article' and 'blog post.' But they're just reading what we're writing for them and responding. It's our hang-up, not theirs." 

Most readers, if not all, care only that the writing is interesting, informative, relevant and honest.