Latino CMS Directory?

We started cataloging Latino “blogs” a little over one year ago in the Latino Blog Directory and in that time we’ve been able to discover hundreds of blog sites built in a variety of ways. Many of which, don’t look anything like a traditional style blog and many that may not even want to be called “blogs” even when that’s exactly what they are. We’ve been noticing more and more of these non-traditional blogs and it got us thinking.

What is happening in the “blogoshpere” that more and more “bloggers” are falling into the content producer role and building blogs to look and act more like online magazines. We’ve seen a lot of cases where a blog can go through theme-change after theme-change to the point it ends up turning into a magazine.

We’re seeing many bloggers moving away from the traditional scrolling blog and opting for the magazine style format. Why is this? We think the answer is simple. They want to begin channeling their content, section it off, and organize their posts beyond the blog chronological default. The site is still technically a blog using blog components like tags, categories, archives, chronological posts, and static pages. The difference is that with some CSS magic and layout customization in the theme, these blog parts can be shaped into something much sexier than the standard blog.

Publishing software like Wordpress has made it very easy for anyone to start a traditional “blog” or use the exact same software as a Content Management System (CMS) to power any type of website. The options for what your website can be are unlimited due to the availability of thousands of themes that come in an array layouts, styles, and looks to fit whatever you have in mind to build. Whether it’s a small community blog addition to your current website or a stand-alone blog magazine – there’s probably going to be a theme for it with a backend that’ll function as your CMS.

It’s when people are choosing these themes, this moment, when we think that some “bloggers” make the decision to be more than the stereotypical blogger who keeps an online journal of potluck topics. They’ve discovered that they can just as easily put together a very nice magazine. It’s human nature to want customize the default setting of anything and if you can imitate large publishers especially when the tools make it possible, why not go ahead and do it?

The same would-be blogger may discover they have a gnack for design or coding and maybe they decide not to blog at all. They make these decisions once they’ve discovered that the tools provided, have made it extremely easy to be the next big web publisher. All you need is to put in the sweat. This is what got us thinking about the future of blogs and the Latino Blog Directory. Should we rename our catalog to the Latino CMS Directory or Latino Website Directory? It’s when the line starts getting blurry between blogs, magazines, and niche community sites that gets us wondering where we’re headed.

On top of everything, we know these options will grow even more in the coming months of this “blog” evolution, the would’ve-been-blogger will have the tools to build a complete social network around whatever it is they have decided to build, be it a blog, a magazine, a personal lifestream, a photoblog, videoblog or blog network. This year micro-communities will begin sprouting up like never before and they will attach and grow around “blogs” but we will not go into that subject in this post. We’ll explore the “micro-community” in a future post. But keep it in mind because blog/mini-social networks will be here soon and change the blogosphere and really make things blurry…Latino Social Network Directory, maybe?

So where are we at? What will the definition of the “blog” be? Will someone who builds a magazine blog want to be considered as a blog? Will they want to be called a blogger? Will more blogs become magazines and/or social networks. Ultimately, “blog” will just need to mean that you can do any-of-the-above. The verb blog will just will need to encompass everything we are able to do with web publishing software. Maybe it already means this to a lot people but not to everyone. There is still a large group of people who will still equate the word blog with the traditional and that may be a bad thing keeping them from ever entering the space, keeping them from discovering that they can build a “blog” for their band, business, neighborhood and have it be their website.

We just want to explain to folks new to blogging or publishing that the options are endless. Start a blog! – it doesn’t have to mean what you may think it means. Micro-blogging has proven that. Nowadays you can build your own twitter-like microblog without ever having to use twitter or tumblr. We are in the days where you can write a 140 character post and have yourself considered as a blogger. It wasn’t too long ago there were blog tip sites defining what a good blog was, how many words your post should be, how to and dos-and-don’ts. That’s been blurred too. Post a status message as post, post an image as a post or a video, frame it all into a magazine if you want to, that’s blogging.

What was a traditional magazine before if not a blog? Now that they are online , they have blogs separate from their articles, when those same articles could also be blog entries. Have we lost you? Guess there is a difference at some level when it comes to edited articles versus common speak blog entries like the one we are writing here, with grammar, writing style errors and all. But hey! where are the grammar police to arrest us?

The point of this rambling is that you can make your blog what you want it to be but at the end of the day, you are still going to be a blogger, you are logging web entries in some form or another – that is a weblog, a blog. Our call to action is simply for you to take this first step of starting a blog and you’ll discover soon after that you can branch into any style of website imaginable. Then that leads to more innovation, more blogs, more good read! Just don’t forget that you are blogger, magazine or not. Blogadera started as a blog blogging about blogs… now we look to the sky for a limit when there is no limit.