That’s “website,” not “Web site!”
Geesh. Who would've guessed that changing a capital W to lowercase and eliminating a space could generate a flurry of blogs, tweets and columns and get copy editors everywhere up in arms. I'm sure there will be entire Web sites devoted to the tweet heard ’round the news world today, proclaiming that as of 3 a.m. Saturday EST, according to The Associated Press, the term "Web site" officially becomes "website."
Here's the Twitter tweet from @APStylebook: "Responding to reader input, we are changing Web site to website. This appears on the AP’s online stylebook today and in the 2010 book next month."
http://twitter.com/APStylebook/status/12296505018
The change was announced Friday afternoon during the American Copy Editors Society (http://www.aces2010.org/) conference in Philadelphia. The conference drew 321 copy editors from newspapers, magazines, online publications and other businesses nationwide. Conferencegoers flooded the society’s conference Twitter feed (#aces2010) with posts about the switch, pro and con. (The next earthshaking change, the editors seemed to think, could be the dropping of the hyphen in "e-mail.")
Mallary Jean Tenore wrote about the mixed reaction to the change on her blog at the Poynter Institute Web site: http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=101&aid=181664
The change became a trending topic on Twitter:http://twitter.com/#search?q=%22AP%20Stylebook%20Finally%22
The AP Stylebook is the official rule book for writers and editors at many newspapers, so watch for the change to take effect in fewer than 11 hours.
It must be a Friday afternoon for folks to get this riled up over something this small. All I know is I'll need to remember to use the new style the next time I write anything about a Web site (or, website, for those of you reading this after 3 a.m. Saturday).
