I've said it before and I said it again, and I heard other people say it repeatedly (e.g., Anton): blog is software.
It's up to every individual (or group, or organization, or company, or political entity) to put it to creative use.
Blog is not content. Content is what someone puts on a blog.
Medium is not the message. Though medium affects the message, of course, and content found on blogs is affected by the ease of use, extremely low cost, and frequency of updating, as well as social communication norms that develop over time.
This, this and this are expansions on that theme, mostly. Interesting reads, nonetheless. What do you think?
More like this
Just read this Abstract from PLoS:
I'm on my annual summer hiatus for the month of July so I'll be only publishing my weekly Friday Fun posts as well as re-posting some of the interviews I did a few years ago on the old blog with people from the publishing, library and science worlds.
Many of us supported Barack Obama during the Presidential campaign, not because we agreed with all of his positions but we agreed with many of them that were crucial. We also saw no morally viable alternative.
I was having similar thoughts the other day. Think about the term "blogging" (rather than the noun blog, think of the activity). Every now and then someone comes along with a "blogging code" or mentions "blogging ethics" ... I've also seen some conversations where people suddenly decide that bloggERS are journalists. (Which is rather offensive to journalists, I'm sure).
But blogging is like writing, or driving, or a lot of other broadly based activities. The ethics, or codes, don't come from the blogging, but from the other professional or avocational link... maybe just being a person, maybe a scientist, maybe a community liaison, and in some cases, maybe even a journalist.
The blog is software. Blogging is programming.