February 18, 2005

Two new vertical blogs in Germany

Posted at 11:15 in Blogs & nanopublishing | | 29 Comments

The French nanopublishing company social media group launches two vertical blogs in Germany, Der Auto Blog and Der Vintage Blog.

They should have asked a native german speaker, before buying the domains: in germany it is calles "das" blog, not "der" blog.

See you in munich on tuesday.
Mario

Mario, February 18, 2005 at 14:40

This is the second comment mentionning this, you're getting me worried... am I really losing it?

As it happens we didn't totally launch Germany without any background or local knowledge, nor did we buy domain names without knowing whate we were doing... I am German, I would still say that it is Der Blog.

Das Blog is OK as well, since Blog is not a defined word in the german dictionnary Duden. To me Der Blog sounds better in German, specially with masculine subjects like cars and bikes.
You only have to search Google for 'Der blog' to see how many results you get. I can assure you, both are fine :)

Christophe Schwartz, February 18, 2005 at 19:06

OK, lets do a comparsion: "Der Blog": 50.900 Google results. "Das Blog": 111.000 hits. So there is a clear 2/3 to 1/3 majority that prefers "Das Blog". In the Bundestag you could change the constitution with that :-)

As "Blog" is a composition of (We)b and Log(buch), "das" seems to be logical, as it is both called "das" Web and "das" Logbuch.

Mario, February 18, 2005 at 20:08

And I can asure you, that 'der Blog' is a clear sign for not knowing what you do.

Plus when you state google references, please exclude all correct things like "der Blog-Zug". "Die Blog" as search term has 14.400 hits btw.

Even if there is no occurence of Blog in the dictionary, it is (as Mario stated correctly) it is "das Log(buch)" and "das Web".

But what to expect from a website which only partly is in German but for the rest in French? And 'syndikieren'? Hello?

"Hätten Sie mal jemanden gefragt, der sich damit auskennt ..."

Nicole Simon, February 18, 2005 at 23:49

DAS Blog. I don't recall where I read this, but some German blogger had actually contacted DUDEN staff and they confirmed they have "weblog" on their watch list. He also confirmed they currently tend toward DAS Blog.

Heiko, February 19, 2005 at 00:24

What's a "vertical blog"..?

Moe, February 19, 2005 at 13:23

Theory: Vertical Blog

Analysis: A blog written in a chronological manner with an appearance with the newest entries from the top followed by each other entry to the bottom of a page?

Conclusion: The majority of all blogs are vertical blogs!

Resume: Lovely...

Mike Schnoor, February 19, 2005 at 13:51

I must say I can't contribute much being french with hardly any German skills but this a fascinating conversation; in french blog is masculine, god knows why... neutral also exists in English, a dog is a 'it' which never stopped anyone from calling them a 'he' or a 'she'... There is a funny article on auto Muse called "Blog is Masculine" after we launched der autoblog and le blog auto... http://www.vehicleinfo.com/AutoMuse/archives/2005/02/blog_is_masculi.html#comments

it doesn't really give us an answer but some of you could contribute to the debate there as well, until we know for sure ( and damn we have to buy another domain name...

We may just do that to make sure we get back into Nicole Simon's good books or avoid further lectures, is there anything there that may have upset you? it is simply a debate isn't it?... By the way Nicole , I would be curious to know where you saw french in der auto blog?. We do share relevant content, but French?

I would say one thing though, this is the beauty of blogs, getting so many people to contribute to the debate, bringing their experience and expertise.

Now I'm not saying that the following are right either, but can you check them out, there is a fair amount of "der blog" in there :) and the list is endless


http://www.stangl-taller.at/ARBEITSBLAETTER/blog/default.shtml
http://blog.promagna.com/
http://www.voltaplatz.ch/blog/
http://blog.escapenet.ch/
http://www.myblog.de/anili
http://www.maennerseiten.de/blog/
http://www.jazznrhythm.de/blog/pivot/entry.php?id=85
http://www.blogall.de/blogall/

Regards
Christophe

Christophe Labedan, February 19, 2005 at 14:40

"Der Blog" annoys some people, because it sounds utterly wrong when you are used to saying "Das Blog". I think it should be "Das Blog", too.
Yes, there are German Bloggers who say "Der Blog", but as Mario points out, this is a minority.

Last September, someone asked the people at DUDEN (a very famous german language dictionary), and they said that they are still watching the use of that word, but right now they prefer "Das Weblog". Possibly both uses might be correct, though.
(see http://blogg.zeit.de/salon/eintrag.php?id=20#k29668 )

Another example for this might be the word "Gummi" (gum): Most people say "Das Gummi", but some do say "Der Gummi", and it seems as both uses are correct. It's just that "Das" is used by much more people.

Actually it's up to us how we use it, I guess.

Moe, February 19, 2005 at 15:19

Thanks Moe, I guess the last thing we want to do is annoy anyone, it is meant to be a fun blog for car enthusiasts... We have bought www.dasautoblog.com and www.dasvintageblog as a result of these exchanges and thanks everyone for contributing... I'm not saying this is the name we will use but at least we're open to change.

Christophe Labedan, February 19, 2005 at 15:42

Moe,
vertical refers to the fact that the subject matter is well defined. If you talk about everything in your blog (holidays, politics, my wife and my holidays) I would say this is a horizontal blog. We have launched a seies of vertical blogs, i.e. each one is dedicated to one industry or subject matter: i.e cars, health, finance etc

Christophe Labedan, February 19, 2005 at 15:53

Nicole, Mike,
ich denke wir führen diese sehr interessante Diskussion besser auf deutsch fort. Meiner Meinung nach kann mann beides sagen. Der Blog klingt einfach besser. Ihr könnt natürlich auch das Weblogbuch sagen.


Nicole,
dein Vergleich mit dem Baum und dem Mädchen hinkt. Das hat nichts mit dem Geschlecht derjenigen zu tun, sodern in dem Fall einfach wie der Akkusativ lautet.

Also, für unsere Publikationen haben wir DER BLOG gewählt. Seht es eher als einen Markennamen, wie "Die Moass" beim Oktoberfest.

Auf jeden fall bin ich gespannt wie es demnächst im Duden steht.

Christoph, February 19, 2005 at 16:07

Christoph, nett von dir das du der Mehrheit und der Dudenredaktion (siehe Link oben) zugestehst weiterhin sächlich zu bleiben.

Aber "syndikieren" ist nicht wirklich dein Ernst, oder? Oder klingt das auch besser?

Beim Thema "vertikales Irgendwas" springt bei mir sofort der Bullshit-Melder an, aber du kannst das natürlich auch weiterhin sagen...

flynn, February 19, 2005 at 19:54

OK, guys the "syndikieren" ist korrigiert. check www.derautoblog.com

For the discussion about der oder das, I'd just like to mention a Google voting that gave a scrore of 5:1 for DER BLOG
You can check the result at :
http://cfe.twoday.net/stories/436560/#comments

So we will keep them named "der auto blog" and "der vintage blog"

Christoph, February 19, 2005 at 22:10

Christoph,
the french parts have mainly disappeared (Voir aussi : Actualité), somebody did work on that, but it still says "siehe auch : Actualité" (hint: if you try to change things, do it on all places. hint2: wait till the google cache expired to play innocent)

Bookproof - I would say even if just one part of it is neutrum, the whole composed word is.

(As you seem to like 'bookproof' - there is no space in front of signs like !? etc.)

The main reason der blog sounds good in your eyes and does not sound good on das Blog is probably because french is 'le blog'. But this does not make "der Sonne" and "die Mond" suddenly correct in German.

Moe: If I hear der Gummi there is a slightly different meaning to it than das Gummi - even though both of them speak of Gummi. :)


Nicole Simon, February 19, 2005 at 22:59

"A google voting said so" and this is your argument for ending the discussion?

Interesting. Thanks for reminding me not to spend more time on this.

Nicole Simon, February 19, 2005 at 23:03

Sheesh, don't you have any other problems? And then you are surprised when the general public doesn't take blogs seriously?

Armin, February 20, 2005 at 01:05

Nicole,
You seem extremely judgemental and almost angry... I'm puzzled...

I'm not one to get into overstreched useless arguments but a lot of people have been making some valuable contributions here which we do value, not just plain petty criticisms, almost as if you had a hidden agenda... We still want to hear some counter arguments but ultimately though the final decision is ours, even if taking into account the things that were said here.

There were some mistakes on the blog due to the fact that I (personnaly) built the German version on the back of the french one, so yes, hands up and we are still improving it, but why does it seem to annoy you so much??... I thought you'd be happy but then again I suppose there would not be anymore to be said from you on the subject. OK then, we'll probably leave a couple in there just for you, that's how we are:)

By the way, one of your comments on our blog was :
"If it would be "der Blog" ... I don't mean to be facetious but you should really say "if it were "der Blog" .
No worries, I will correct it when Im done with "der auto blog".

Christophe Labedan, February 20, 2005 at 01:32

I'll promise you, 'der blog' is not on my hidden agenda. ;)

Nicole Simon, February 20, 2005 at 03:16

Ich ziehe "das Blog" vor, obwohl ich als Bayer auch an "der Butter" und "der Radio" gewöhnt bin ;-)

Es gibt im Deutschen nicht nur dialektale Unterschiede des Artikelgebrauchs, sondern auch "fachgruppenspezifische" (Soziolekt wäre hier wohl zu stark). Beim Virus heißt es etwa korrekterweise "das Virus" und wird im medizinischen und biologischen Zusammenhang so verwendet. Geht es dagegen um die elektronische Variante, benutzen die meisten "der Virus" bzw. "der Computervirus".

Dieser Sprachgebrauch ist teils durch falsche Verwendung fachfremden Vokabulars bedingt, teils sind es Verkürzungen ("der Radioapparat" => "der Radio"), teils auch Analogbildungen bei der Assimilation von Fremdwörtern.

Gerade deshalb tendiere ich zu "das Blog": Im Deutschen heißt es "das Logbuch" und "das Tagebuch". Außerdem sollte man die psychologische Komponente nicht unterschätzen. Die Meinungsbildner der deutschen Blogosphäre benutzen alle "das Blog" - da landet man mit "der Blog" ganz schnell in der Amateurecke.

Aber Logik spielt nicht immer eine Rolle, vgl. "das Link" vs. "der Link", "die URL" vs. "der URL".

Martin Herbaty, February 20, 2005 at 09:32

Christoph, natürlich kannst du deine Blogs nennen, wie du willst, sogar "Die Blog". Wenn zwei Drittel der deutschen Blogosphäre dann allerdings annehmen, hinter deine Blogs stecke mindestens ein Ignorant, wirst du damit leben müssen. Mir wäre das zu riskant, aber es ist ja dein Geld.

Siehe auch die Anmerkungen von Herrn iX.

Mario, February 20, 2005 at 17:45

FWIW, mein Blog ist seit über vier Jahren männlich, und bleibt es auch. Aber letztendlich ist das Geschlecht sowas von komplett egal, darüber streiten nur Besserwisser. Ätsch :-).

And why do you call it a "vertical" blog? It would be much more clear if you simply called it what it is, namely a Gawker-style commercial blog. D'accord?

Matthias, February 20, 2005 at 21:42

if only I had thought this would start such a discussion ! Thank you all for your comments...

Loic, February 21, 2005 at 06:26

Yes, I agree... these exchanges have been stimulating to say the least...!
No one likes to think they are doing something wrong particularly when one is passionate about what they are doing, but the last thing we want is to think that the name we chose could make readers feel uneasy about it, or that it sounds simply wrong.

At the end of the day, you have all been extremely helpful and quite convincing, so thank you for this, we have decided to switch from Der auto blog and der vintage blog to Das auto blog and das vintage blog. Thanks to Loic for hosting this debate and getting us back onto track... It may have taken a lot longer before we realised the problem if we had launched a paper magazine or even a standard website.

Since you've all been so involved, we expect to receive lots of article suggestions from you all, tons of comments and an average of 10 page impressions per unique rader/day :)
Thanks again
Christophe
on behalf of the team at Social Media Group

Christophe Labedan, February 21, 2005 at 11:41

The volume of this discussion is indeed impresive. In the meantime I published a couple of posts about the Golf GTI on our auto blog in German. By the way is it, der Golf or Das Golf...im plural, die Gölfe .... ? Oh, no, not again..... :-D

Christoph, February 21, 2005 at 15:58

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