Blogs no longer equal conversations?
James Dellow wrote last week about his perspective on blogs, comments and the conversations seemingly inherent to "blogging" as opposed to just streams of information-filled posts. It's a follow-on from a few Twitter messages back and forth with James R and myself.
It is possible for social media tools to be used for traditional information management, and also vice versa...but most users now expect far more sophistication in their blogging tools, including features such as commenting, tagging, RSS feeds and more...this blogging functionality still doesn't define the activity of blogging (what I consider to be the "form" of usage and is different from the "function" of the software).
The key difference between blogging and content management is the intent of the blogger to engage their readers on some level over a period of time, rather than simply broadcasting information. And that to me to is best described as a conversation, although hyper-connected one at that.
I disagree, however. For me these days a blog is little more than a sophisticated, easy-to-use website platform. A place where an individual or a department/function can have their own site quickly and easily. Simplistic that may be, but whether news posts or thought articles, the commenting or conversation aspect of blogging appears to by dying down in many places (just recently there was a flurry of blog posts suggesting that "comments were dead" - a scary thought for many companies just flicking the "On" switch on their corporate blogging initiatives....).
Yet blogs without comment aren't necessarily lacking in readership - or even participation. This is where the "intent" aspect of James D's manifesto falls down for me. I don't think conversations necessarily make a blog. To me they're a component, a module that can or cannot be there (and increasingly are not there).
It hasn't always been like this. As James R said, blogging these days does feel slightly old school when lined up against the latest apps (yup, like Twitter), but that's not so say it's losing its place. Just a year or so ago I'd probably have agreed that a blog isn't a blog without comments. But given the rapid pace of change in this area, I just feel the bulk of the conversation has moved on to somewhere more instant and flowing (and collaborative, even), while blogs remain great places for easily publishing useful content, be that information, links, ideas or anything else. Admittedly there is some irony in this post, but I stand by the premise.
