"What We're
Doing When We Blog?"
By Meg Hourihan
Every day it seems another article about weblogs
appears in the press. At first, most of these stories seemed content
to cover the personal nature of blogging. But more and more I'm
seeing articles that attempt to examine the journalistic and punditry
aspects of weblogs prominent in many of the so-called "warblogs,"
or sites that began in response to the events of September 11th.
The articles' authors are rarely webloggers themselves,
which places them in the unenviable position of describing and
defining weblogs based on observation, not experience. Given the
vast number of blogs, it can be very difficult to understand the
breadth and scope of blogging when an editor wants 750 words in
48 hours.
I've noticed this has resulted in a variety of
ideas about and definitions of the weblogs -- from statements
that blogs are personal journals filled with the (often dull or
trivial) minutiae of daily life to a belief that blogs are right-wing
responses to the liberal media establishment. Witness the recent
article, "Online
Uprising" by Catherine Seipp in the American Journalism
Review:
"In general, 'blog' used to mean
a personal online diary, typically concerned with boyfriend
problems or techie news. But after September 11, a slew of new
or refocused media junkie/political sites reshaped the entire
Internet media landscape. Blog now refers to a Web journal that
comments on the news -- often by criticizing the media and usually
in rudely clever tones -- with links to stories that back up
the commentary with evidence."
In her article, Catherine forgoes the more traditional
weblogs-are-links-plus-commentary definition to carve out a new
meaning for the word, limited to the type of blogs she reads.
But Catherine's analysis misses some of the very subtleties that
distinguish weblogs from other writing. Rather than rant that
Catherine just "doesn't get it," it seems to me that
her article, and others that are similar, are perfect opportunities
for the blogging community to talk about our own evolution.
Our Commonality
If we look beneath the content of weblogs, we
can observe the common ground all bloggers share -- the format.
The weblog format provides a framework for our universal blog
experiences, enabling the social interactions we associate with
blogging. Without it, there is no differentiation between the
myriad content produced for the Web.
Whether you're a warblogger who works by day
as a professional journalist or you're a teenage high school student
worried about your final exams, you do the same thing: you use
your blog to link to your friends and rivals and comment on what
they're doing. Blog posts are short, informal, sometimes controversial,
and sometimes deeply personal, no matter what topic they approach.
They can be characterized by their conversational tone and unlike
a more formal essay or speech, a blog post is often an opening
to a discussion, rather than a full-fledged argument already arrived
at.
As bloggers, we update our sites frequently on
the content that matters to us. Depending on the blogger, the
content varies. But because it's a weblog, formatted reverse-chronologically
and time-stamped, a reader can expect it will be updated regularly.
By placing our email addresses on our sites, or including features
to allow readers to comment directly on a specific post, we allow
our readers to join the conversation. Emails are often rapidly
incorporated back into the site's content, creating a nearly real-time
communication channel between the blog's primary author (its creator)
and its secondary authors (the readers who email and comment).
And we're united by tools, whether we use Blogger,
LiveJournal, Radio UserLand, Movable Type, or a custom job that's
a labor of love. Webloggers often use tools to facilitate the
publication of their sites. These tools spit out our varied content
in the same format -- archives, permalinks, time stamps, and date
headers.
A Native Format
When the Web began, the page was the de facto
unit of measurement, and content was formatted accordingly. Online
we don't need to produce content of a certain length to meet physical
page-size requirements. And as the Web has matured, we've developed
our own native format for writing online, a format that moves
beyond the page paradigm: The weblog, with its smaller, more concise,
unit of measurement; and the post, which utilizes the medium to
its best advantage by proffering frequent updates and richly hyperlinked
text.
While a page usually contains one topic, or a
portion of a single-topic item spans several pages (an opinion
piece, an essay or column, a technical document, or press release),
the weblog post is a self-contained topical unit. It can be as
short as one sentence, or run for several paragraphs. And it's
the amalgamation of multiple posts -- on varying topics -- on
a single page that distinguishes the weblog from its online ancestor,
the home page.
Freed from the constraints of the printed page
(or any concept of "page"), an author can now blog a
short thought that previously would have gone unwritten. The weblog's
post unit liberates the writer from word count.
The Posts Collection
What distinguishes a collection of posts from
a traditional home page or Web page? Primarily it's the reverse-chronological
order in which posts appear. When a reader visits a weblog, she
is always confronted with the newest information at the top of
the page.
Having the freshest information at the top of
the page does a few things: as readers, it gives a sense of immediacy
with no effort on our part. We don't have to scan the page, looking
for what's new or what's been changed. If content has been added
since our last visit, it's easy to see as soon as the page loads.
Additionally, the newest information at the top
(coupled with its time stamps and sense of immediacy) sets the
expectation of updates, an expectation reinforced by our return
visits to see if there's something new. Weblogs demonstrate that
time is important by the very nature in which they present their
information. As weblog readers, we respond with frequent visits,
and we are rewarded with fresh content.
The Anatomy of a Post
A weblog post can be identified by the following
distinguishing characteristics: a date header, a time stamp, and
a permalink. Oftentimes the author's name appears beneath each
post as well, especially if multiple authors are contributing
to one blog. If commenting is enabled (giving the reader a form
to respond to a specific post) a link to comment will also appear.
The Links
Links, and the accompanying commentary, have
often been hailed as the distinguishing characteristic of a weblog.
The linking that happens through blogging creates the connections
that bind us. Commentary alone is the province of journals, diaries,
and editorial pieces.
The Time Stamp
By its very presence, the time stamp connotes
the sense of timely content; the implicit value of time to the
weblog itself is apparent because the time is overtly stated on
each post. Without the time stamp, the reader is unable to discern
the author's update pattern, or experience a moment of shared
experience.
But if I visit your site at 4:02 p.m. and see
you just updated at 3:55 p.m., it's as if our packets crossed
in the ether. You, the author, and I, the reader, were "there"
at the same time -- and this can create a powerful connection
between us.
Moments of shared experience can be powerful
connectors. They happen in the offline world when two strangers
on the subway chuckle at the same funny billboard, and make eye
contact as they do so. In the online world, they happen when I'm
thinking about buying an iBook and I read on your blog that you've
just bought one, at the same time.
The Permalink
The permalink (the link to the permanent location
of the post in the blog's archive) plays a critical role in how
authors participate in distributed conversations across weblogs.
The permalink allows for precise references, creating a way for
authors to link to the specific piece of information to which
they're responding.
If your blog has ten current entries, four of
which are about cats and only one of which is about the release
of Mozilla 1.0, the permalink provides the means by which fellow
Mozilla bloggers can reference the correct post, and in doing
so, create a loosely-distributed Mozilla conversation. Without
the permalink, the conversation is drowned out in a sea of irrelevant
cat chatter.
A Communication Evolution
When we talk about weblogs, we're talking about
a way of organizing information, independent of its topic. What
we write about does not define us as bloggers; it's how we write
about it (frequently, ad nauseam, peppered with links).
Weblogs simply provide the framework, as haiku
imposes order on words. The structure of the documents we're creating
enable us to build our social networks on top of it -- the distributed
conversations, the blog-rolling lists, and the friendships that
begin online and are solidified over a "bloggers dinner"
in the real world.
As bloggers, we're in the middle of, and enjoying,
an evolution of communication. The traits of weblogs mentioned
above will likely change and advance as our tools improve and
our technology matures. What's important is that we've embraced
a medium free of the physical limitations of pages, intrusions
of editors, and delays of tedious publishing systems. As with
free speech itself, what we say isn't as important as the system
that enables us to say it.
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