Spending a few months as a blogger has fundamentally altered my initial opinion of the nature of the web log. Blogging is social. Bloggers read and reflect and write. Bloggers establish an identity.
Blogging is a conversation. An individual weblog typically has a single author; however, a typical blog entry will contain one or more links. It is through these links and their associated commentary that the conversation takes place. A few standard elements of a blog contribute to this social nature:
- Comments: The comment form enables direct feedback. Any reader can comment on a blog entry, participating in the conversation without necessarily being a fellow blogger.
- Trackback: This allows readers to follow links to other blogs that mention a particular entry on this one. Not all blogs have this. It may even be specific to Moveable Type blogs (which is the software behind this particular blog).
- Links: Most web logs have a list of links on the right or left margin. These links often point to other web logs.
- Web Stats: more a standard part of a site, than a standard part of a blog. Some hosted blog sites don’t provide stats, but the fine folks at Media Temple who host this site provide a nice graphs and charts.
Web stats let me see when the readership of this site grew beyond a few colleagues. I could not have guessed this turning point from the comments. As is typical with community sites, people who participate are a small minority of visitors. Does the presence of an audience change my behavior as an author? Probably, but I couldn't tell you exactly how. "Anatomy of a Meme" and the Microdocs article (below) track the influence of traffic. I suppose one effect of an increase in readership is that people write about it.
Blogs as collective journalism:
“blogs cannot be read in isolation from each other. Blog stories are understood and appreciated in aggregate and not in isolation. On the other hand, mainstream media stories tend to be read in isolation rather than read and compared.” – a recent Microdocs news story
Another blogger's thoughts on blogging:
“what I get out of it is clearly informed by the larger coummunity of webloggers. I steal links from them, to be sure, but I also respond to their comments, learn from them, and get ideas from this interplay.” – Dan Hartung’s manifestito