Weblog conversations: definition and characteristics

Pieces from thinking on weblog conversations…

My own (working) definition of weblog conversations:

• weblog posts and comments
• on a specific topic
• interlinked

The combination of all these three is important. For example, according to my definition, these are NOT weblog conversations:

• posts aggregated at BlogTalk channel
• posts about BlogTalk 2.0
• posts that link to http://blogtalk.net

Characteristics of weblog conversations

• distributed over multiple weblogs (without any borders: if you study 100 weblogs you can be never sure that you have all pieces of the puzzle)
• lack of bi-directional links: in most cases there is a link from a later post pointing to an earlier one, but not vice-versa (This problem could be solved with the use of trackbacks, but many popular blogging platforms do not support trackbacks yet.)
• tangential: each post can “belong” to several different conversations at the same time

This post also appears on channel weblog research

Archived version of this entry is available at http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2004/07/16.html#a1288; comments are here.

• Topics and terms (categorisations and text analysis) for weblog conversations
• On the bursty evolution of blogspace
• Weblog conversations revisited: conversations with self

Tagged as: blog conversations